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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 







GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 

After the portrait by Kramer 




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SELECTIONS FROM 

BYRON 

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV 
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 
MAZEPPA, AND OTHER POEMS 




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Edited 

With Introduction and Notes 

by 



SAMUEL MARION TUCKER, Ph.D 



Professor of English in 
The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn 






GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 




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Copyright, 1907, ign 
By SAMUEL MARION TUCKER 



ALL RIGHTS' RESERVED 



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GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 

©CLA2833J 



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TO 

WILLIAM PETERFIELD TRENT 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

IN GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM 



PREFACE 

The primary purpose of this book is to give the young 
reader some insight into Byron's genius by presenting for 
study and for reading those of his poems which should make 
the most immediate appeal. For such a purpose much of 
Byron's poetry is admirably fitted, since, as a whole, it is not 
abstruse in its subject-matter, is lucid in its expression, and, 
above all, is spirited and energetic. 

To teach the essential spirit of literature, not grammar, 
philology, or rhetoric, surely should be our aim when we pre- 
sent poetry to our classes. Even history, biography, mythology, 
or anything else, except as these are absolutely essential to a 
proper appreciation of the poem, are not really within our 
province. Teachers of literature have something to do that 
cannot be done by teachers of other subjects ; and we have 
no business to poach upon the preserves of our colleagues. A 
great poem, rightly presented, is sure not only to give aes- 
thetic pleasure, but to train the mind and the heart as well. 
In this connection it may not be amiss for one of his old 
students to acknowledge the help he has received from three 
essays by Professor W. P. Trent, — "Teaching the Spirit of 
Literature," in The Authority of Criticism, and "The Aims 
and Methods of Literary Study" and "Teaching Literature," 
in Greatness in Literature. 

The length of the Introduction to this book, especially of 
the biographical part, can perhaps be justified by Byron's 
importance as a historic figure and by the intimate relations 



viii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

subsisting between his life and his works. The criticism claims 
to be neither technical nor subtle, but attempts to deal rather 
in broad generalizations which may appeal to the young reader 
and yet not mislead him. In the Introduction, the notes, and 
the critical comments I have tried to be accurate in matters 
of fact, and still to present both facts and opinions in a style 
that might awaken interest — without which all literary study is 
of course soulless and ineffective. 

In the choice of selections for this volume, The Prisoner of 
Chillon, Mazeppa, and Childe Harold, Canto IV, since they are 
among the college-entrance requirements, were naturally the first 
consideration. Other poems, in whole or in part, have been in- 
cluded, either for study or for reading, that the book may per- 
haps be found useful in college classes also. Lack of space, 
the purpose of the volume, and, in some cases, objectionable 
matter in the poems themselves have excluded from this collec- 
tion the dramas, the longer narrative poems, and the satires ; 
but the second and third cantos of Childe Harold, Doji Juan, 
and The Vision of Judgment very well lend themselves to 
selection, and we find among Byron's poems many beautiful 
and appropriate lyrics. 

It is hoped that the notes may be found sufficiently elabo- 
rate to pave the way to a full appreciation of the poems, with- 
out hampering the instructor or interfering with the student's 
self-activity. I was in such dread of overediting, having several 
terrible examples before my eyes, that my first intention was 
to include nothing in the notes that could be found by the stu- 
dent in any ordinary work of reference. So rigorous a policy, 
however, seemed to be mistaken in view of the fact that in 
some cases such works of reference may not be readily acces- 
sible ; hence the historical, geographical, and other annotations. 
Some of Byron's allusions are of doubtful significance, and in 
such instances I have expressed merely an opinion. 



PREFACE ix 

Acknowledgments are due to Mr. John Murray, of London, 
for his courteous permission to use his definitive text of Byron's 
poems as edited by Mr. Coleridge and published in the 
twelve-volume edition of the prose and poetical works of Lord 
Byron and in the one-volume edition of the poems, both of 
which editions are imported into this country by Messrs. 
Charles Scribner's Sons. The spelling of this text has, with- 
out exception, been preserved, even in its obvious inconsisten- 
cies. Certain changes in Byron's erratic punctuation, however, 
seemed absolutely necessary in the interests of clearness. It 
may be that the punctuation still remains somewhat inconsist- 
ent both with itself and with modern usage, but it is hoped 
that the poet's meaning will always be readily apparent. 

S. M. T. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Introduction xiii 

Lachin Y Gair i 

Maid of Athens, ere We Part 3 

Modern Greece 4 

Know Ye the Land? . . . . 5 

She walks in Beauty 6 

Song of Saul before his Last Battle 7 

Vision of Belshazzar 8 

The Destruction of Sennacherib 10 

Stanzas for Music 11 

Napoleon's Farewell 13 

Stanzas for Music 14 

Fare Thee Well 15 

Sonnet on Chillon 17 

The Prisoner of Chillon 18 

Stanzas to Augusta 32 

Prometheus 34 

When We Two Parted 36 

The Coliseum by Moonlight 38 

To Thomas Moore 39 

Selections from Childe Harold, Cantos II and III 

Greece before the Revolution of 1821 41 

The Eve before Waterloo 44 

The Rhine 46 

Night and Storm in the Alps 47 

xi 



xii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Page 

Childe Harold, Canto IV 52 

Sun of the Sleepless 131 

Mazeppa 131 

Stanzas from The Vision of Judgment 161 

Stanzas 168 

Stanzas written on the Road between Florence and Pisa 169 



Selections from Don Juan 

"'Tis Sweet to Hear. . ." 171 

The Shipwreck 172 

The Isles of Greece 178 

Sweet Hour of Twilight 181 

On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth Year .... 183 



INTRODUCTION 

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 

Less than a century ago Byron shared with Napoleon the 

wonder of Europe. With the sole exception of Shakespeare, 

x the author of Childe Harold and Don Juan is still 
Byron a great 

historical and to the foreign world by far the greatest figure in 
literary figure English p 0etr y. His influence upon European litera- 
ture has been almost incalculable. Perhaps never did a man's 
personality more deeply impress his generation ; and Byron's 
poems are but a revelation of his personality, — complex, power- 
ful, and brilliant. All this inevitably leads us to some considera- 
tion of the poet's life, character, and place in literature. 

Byron, always something of a fighter and adventurer, sprang 
from an old and fighting stock. The Byrons, or Buruns, were 
Byron's Normans, who came over with the Conqueror, 

ancestry an( j are mentioned in his Domesday Book. They 

perhaps took part in the Crusades ; certainly they fought at 
Crecy, and at Calais one of them was knighted. Various Sir 
Johns, Sir Richards, and Sir Nicholases continued the fighting 
tradition, and in 1643 one particular Sir John, a prominent 
Royalist, was created Baron of Rochdale for his services to 
the royal cause. 

For us the chief interest in Byron's pedigree begins with 
1722, in which year his great-uncle, the fifth lord, was born. 
"The wicked "The wicked lord," as he came to be known, 
lord " having murdered a relative, Mr. Chaworth, bore 

an unenviable reputation. He left the ancestral property in 



xiv SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

a ruinous condition, and made the name of Byron a rather 
questionable heritage for his descendants. His brother, John 
The seaman Byron, became a famous seaman and traveler, who 
and traveler wro te an entertaining autobiography, from which 
his illustrious grandson, the poet, gained material for some 
of his poetry. 

The eldest son of this traveler and seaman, also named John 

Byron, the father of the poet, was born in 1751, and became a 

captain in the Guards. He was a dissipated, worthless fellow, 

d Tack „ known as " Mad Jack," though his character seems 

to have been somewhat redeemed by a certain 
careless generosity and good nature. He eloped with the wife 
of the Marquis of Carmarthen, and married her after she had 

secured a divorce from her former husband. Of 

Byron's birth . * 

this marriage was born Augusta, afterwards Mrs. 
Leigh, the poet's half-sister. This first wife died in 1784, and 
in the next year the fortune hunter entrapped a Scotch lady, 
Miss Catherine Gordon, of Gight, who was of an old family 
and possessed considerable estates. On January 22, 1788, 
the boy known as George Gordon Byron was born in Holies 
Street, London. Soon after this event, having squandered all 
of his wife's fortune, "Jack" Byron deserted his family, fled 
to France, and there died in 1791. 

The boy George came into the world heavily handicapped. 
His father's race was a violent one; his moth«Vs, foolish. 
• . . Had Bvron's mother been other tha she was, 

Character of 

Byron's the tenor of her son's life might have u^. more 

mother equable. But "Mrs. Byron," as the boy often 

called her, was a vain, impulsive woman, hysterical and pas- 
sionate, and utterly capricious in her treatment of her son. 
She alternately abused and petted him ; would berate him as 
a " lame brat " one instant, and caress him the next. So, 
although she was always ready to sacrifice herself for him, 



INTRODUCTION XV 

and doubtless really loved him in her own way, their relations 
were in general most unfortunate. She was no mother for such 
a boy as Byron, — headstrong, passionate, moody, as he was. 
"Your mother's a fool," once remarked a fellow-schoolboy. 
" I know it," was the startling and significant reply. 

This was not all : Byron was lame. This lameness has 
been the subject of endless controversy ; but it is now finally 
Byron's stated, and probably with truth, that he " was 

lameness afflicted with an infantile paralysis which affected 
the muscles of the right leg and foot." From this resulted 
a slight limp, never corrected, in spite of severe treatment. 
About this deformity, which was scarcely noticeable, Byron 
up to the very end of his life was abnormally sensitive. 
" What a pretty boy Byron is ! " remarked a friend of his 
nurse ; "what a pity he is lame ! " Thereupon the boy, with 
flashing eyes, struck at her with his baby whip, exclaiming, 
" Dinna speak of it ! " This abnormal sensitiveness undoubt- 
edly colored his views of society and embittered his disposition. 

Byron's life now falls into five clearly denned periods, — 
his early school life up to and through his Harrow days ; his 
Five epochs of university career; his two years' stay in southern 
Byron's life Europe; his London residence, marriage, and 
subsequent unpopularity ; and his life abroad until his death, 
in 1824, at the age of thirty-six. 

In 1790 -^rs. Byron took her son to Aberdeen and put 
him to S' jol under various tutors. He showed himself a 
School df»«s- 'poor student, but read with avidity all the history 
at Aberdeen an( j romance he could find. From 1794 to 1798 
he attended the grammar school, during which period he was 
sent, in order to recuperate after an attack of scarlet fever, 
to Ballater. Here he wandered through the mountains and 
added to his passionate love of the sea, gained at Aberdeen, 
the love of mountain scenery that glorifies so much of his 



xvi SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

verse. In 1794, through the death of a cousin, he became the 
next heir to the title, and in 1798 the death of " the wicked 
lord " made him, at the age of ten, the sixth Lord Byron. 

After this event Mrs. Byron left at once for Newstead Abbey, 
the ancestral estate in Nottinghamshire. The desolation of 
AtNotting- the family home forced the two into residence at 
ham Nottingham. Here young Byron was placed under 

the treatment of a quack named Lavender, who inflicted upon 
the boy unnecessary and fruitless torture, which he is said to 
have borne with remarkable fortitude. When his tutor referred 
to his suffering he replied, " Never mind, Mr. Rogers ; you 
shall not see any sign of it in me." Within a year he was 
taken to London for treatment and put to school at Dulwich. 
Here he was contented, and did well, according to 

At Dulwich . . , 

the testimony of Dr. Glenme, the head master, 

who speaks of Byron's wide reading in history and poetry, and 

of his good humor while among his comrades. 

In spite of all this, however, Mrs. Byron was not satisfied, 

and at her request her son was removed by his guardian, 

Lord Carlisle, to the great public school at Har- 
Life at Harrow . . 

row. Here he remained until 1804, leading pretty 

much the ordinary schoolboy life — with a difference ; for 
sometimes he went off by himself and dreamed. At this time 
the head master of Harrow was Dr. Drurv, a famous teacher, 
who seems to have understood his eccentric yet gifted pupil, 
and for whom Byron always entertained an affectionate regard. 
" He was," Byron says, " the best, the kindest (and yet strict, 
too) friend I ever had ; and I look on him still as a father, 
whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too 
late, when I have erred, and whose counsel I have but fol- 
lowed when I have done well or wisely." Though he grew 
to love Harrow as the time approached for him to leave it, 
Byron at first hated the discipline of the school, and was 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

never an accurate scholar. But he was a great reader, and 
was fond of declaiming, at which he was remarkably good. In 
athletic sports, where he figured as a leader, swimming and 
rowing were his special favorites, for with these his lameness 
did not interfere. Fighting, it seems, was a pastime with him; 
and his physical prowess was often exercised in behalf of smaller 
and weaker boys, whom he characteristically regarded as the 
victims of tyranny. To one of these he once said, " Harness, 
if any one bullies you, tell me, and I '11 thrash him if I can." 

The warm friendships that were always to mark Byron's life 
existed even in his Harrow days. Among these friends were 
Friends at the Duke of Dorset, his favorite fag ; Sir Robert 
Harrow Peel, afterwards the famous statesman ; and Lord 

Clare. For the last named, Byron's affection was peculiarly 
romantic. Many years later, after contact with the world had 
somewhat embittered his disposition, his affection for Clare had 
suffered no change. As late as 1821 he said, " I never hear the 
name of Clare without a beating of the heart, even now." But 
none of these friends played any great part in his after life. 

More romantic than any friendship, and perhaps as lasting 
as any attachment Byron ever experienced, was his very real 
Miss cha- and ardent love for his cousin, Mary Ann Cha- 
wortn worth. The love was all on Byron's side, however, 

for the young lady was so far from returning the senti- 
ment that she could rather unfeelingly refer to her young 
lover as " that lame boy," — a remark which Byron overheard 
and bitterly resented. Miss Chaworth married in 1805, and 
Byron never wholly recovered from this first disappointment. 
His powerful poem, The Dream, written in 18 16, is merely a 
testimony to the strength and duration of the attachment. 

In 1805 Byron regretfully left Harrow for Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge. Here he took his M.A. degree three years 
later, apparently without really earning it ; for his studies were 



xviii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

very erratically conducted, and he was absent from college 
during the entire year of 1807. Though Byron wished to go to 
Life at cam- Oxford, and so entered Cambridge in a bad temper, 
bridge ve j. h e ma d e the most of his life there, from a 

social standpoint at least. For sports — cricket, shooting, box- 
ing, and riding — he felt all his former fondness, and in them 
showed the same leadership as at Harrow. Again he became 
the center of a coterie of friends, — this time a brilliant set, 
some of whom were to influence his later life, and one or two 
of whom, such as Hobhouse and Hodgson, were to remain 
forever his ardent champions. Newstead Abbey had been let, 
B ron' reia- anc ^ Byron spent his vacations in London, and with 
tions with his his mother at Southwell. The scenes that here took 
place between mother and son were surely such as 
never other poet experienced. At times Mrs. Byron seemed 
quite insane ; and on one occasion both separately made vis- 
its to the local apothecary, each begging him not to sell poison 
to the other. Quarrels and reconciliations alternated, and 
deserve attention only because such unnatural relations could 
not fail to have their effect for the worse on Byron's dispo- 
sition, and should perhaps mitigate our blame for certain 
features of his after life. 

Poetry was an early passion with Byron, and in January, 

1807, he privately printed his first volume, Poems on Various 
Occasions. This was followed in March by a second volume, 
printed at Newark, which he called Hours of Idleness. In this 
not very remarkable effort there was still some little promise of 
"Hours of genius, but its main importance lies in the fact that 
idleness" ^ prompted the famous criticism written by Lord 
Brougham, and printed in The Edinburgh Review for January, 

1808. The Edinburgh's onslaught was terrific. The inoffen- 
sive little volume of juvenile verse certainly did not deserve 
the sarcasm and abuse heaped upon it by the distinguished 



INTRODUCTION xix 

critic ; but that was often the way of critics in those days. The 
review stung Byron to fury. He had long been an admirer of 
the poetry of Pope, and now deliberately planned an elaborate 
literary satire, after the model of The Dunciad, which should 
attack, and, as the author hoped, annihilate, not only the Scotch 
reviewers but the inoffensive English poets as well. 

At Cambridge Byron indulged in all kinds of dissipation, 
which, in accord with his histrionic character, he had the bad 
taste to boast about. What he told about himself, little as his 
exploits redounded to his credit, was probably true, and he 
Life at New- loved to parade it. Such was his tendency almost 
stead Abbey to t h e end of his life, until Missolonghi made 
him a hero. Newstead being now untenanted, he took up 
his residence there, surrounding himself with a wild and 
hilarious set, — Hobhouse, Matthews, Scrope Davies, and 
other Cambridge friends. High carnival reigned in the fine 
old Gothic building ; but to such revels it had, perhaps, long 
been accustomed. All sorts of absurd and outrageous prac- 
tices were encouraged. The company dressed as monks and 
drank wine out of a human skull made into a drinking cup ; 
got up in the dead of night to practice pistol shooting; and 
indulged in many other freaks of the same kind. 

Byron loved animals, and surrounded himself now as always 
with a whole menagerie of pets, — dogs, monkeys, parrots, 
and bears. He once took a pet bear to college with him, 
Love of ani- anc ^ on ^» em S asked what he meant to do with it 
mais: Boat- responded, to the indignation of the college author- 
swain ities, " He shall sit for a fellowship." To Boat- 

swain, a Newfoundland dog, he was especially attached. 
When Boatswain died his master's misanthropy, as well as his 
love for his pet, found expression in the famous epitaph, 

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise ; 
I never knew but one, and here he lies, — 



XX SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

a statement both untrue and affected, but not without some 
excuse. Such sentiments, if sincere, sprang naturally, even 
inevitably, from Byron's morbid outlook on life. He alter- 
nated between fits of hilarious mirth and moods of profound 
gloom. His satirical and clear-sighted friend, Scrope Davies, 
must have proved a wholesome antidote. " I shall go mad," 
the poet once exclaimed, in one of his despairing and pas- 
sionate moods. "It is much more like silliness than madness," 
cuttingly remarked Davies. 

Byron's coming of age in 1809 was, on account of lack of 
means, celebrated very quietly at Newstead ; and after this 
event the young peer went up to London to take his seat in 
the House of Lords. When introduced, he appeared awkward 
and ill at ease. "I'have taken my seat, and now I will go 
abroad," was his remark after the ceremony. In the same 
Byron's com- month English Bards and Scotch Reviewe?-s, the 
HoliseofLords; 6 satn " e on which he had been working for a year, 
"English was given to the public. Its effect was immediate. 

Bards and r^ SC athine sarcasm, often merciless and in the 
Scotch Re- b ' 

viewers" worst possible taste, fell alike on the just and on the 
unjust, on small and on great, even on such famous poets as 
Scott and Moore. It delighted the public, and forever estab- 
lished Byron's ability to fight his own battles, and the impos- 
sibility of attacking him with impunity. The lamb had shown 
himself a lion. But he soon became heariily ashamed of his 
boyish satire, and tried to withdraw it from circulation ; while 
some of the poets he so unjustly attacked became afterwards 
his warmest friends. 

The third epoch in Byron's life began in 1809, when he 
borrowed money and left England for 'an extended tour 
through southern Europe, accompanied by his friend Hob- 
house and several servants. After visiting Portugal and Spain, 
he stopped at Sardinia and Malta, and spent the greater part 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

of two years wandering about Albania and Greece. He was 

entertained by the famous Albanian bandit and despot, Ali 

Pasha ; visited Missolonghi, where some twelve years later he 

was to die ; and spent several months at Athens, where he 

finished the first canto of Childe Harold and met the young 

a tour through girl to whom he addressed his Maid of Athens. 

southern Eu- j n March, 1810, he was at Smyrna. Here he com- 

rope ; the 

" Ma i d f Ath- pleted the second canto of Childe Harold, and 

ens " shortly after, in April of the same year, accom- 

plished his famous feat of swimming across the Hellespont. 
Of this achievement Byron was inordinately proud, and he 
celebrated it both in his letters and in his poems. He took 
especial delight in the classical associations connected with 
this exhibition of his prowess and looked upon himself as a 
second Leander. For over a year he wandered about the 
adjacent country, visiting Constantinople, and incidentally 
gathering material for his Eastern romances. Some of his 
adventures were undoubtedly romantic enough for even his 
daring disposition, but they gathered around them the most 
absurd exaggerations, and to this day it is difficult to separate 
the truth from the falsehood. Whatever may have been the 
romantic side of this two years' wandering, the experience 
probably fostered the poet's personal interest in Greece, pro- 
vided him with new literary material, and certainly greatly 
enlarged his knowledge of the world. 

Tired of this sort of life, Byron finally returned to England 
by sea in July, 181 1. He reached home to find trouble. Not 
Return to on ly were his finances in a desperate state, but his 

England; mother died on August 1, before he could reach 

death of 

Byron's her side. " I now feel the truth of Gray's obser- 

mother vation, that we only can have one mother. Peace 

be with her," he said ; and he spoke with sincerity, doubtless, 

for after all she was his mother, and had loved him. 



xxii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Upon his return to England Byron entered on the fourth 
period of his life, — that of his extraordinary London career, 
his first literary fame, his marriage, and his subsequent unpop- 
ularity. At this period began his warm friendship with the 
famous Irish poet, Tom Moore, whom he had ridiculed in 
Life in Lon- English Bards. The Irishman generously forgave 

don ; Tom fo e attack, and the two became the best of friends. 

IVIoorc ' 

"Cniide Moore's biography of his fellow- poet, The Letters 

Harold" and Journals of Lord Byron, is one of the most 

admirable books of its kind in existence, — discriminating, 
trustworthy, and sympathetic. Shortly after his return, Byron 
was asked by his relative, Dallas what poems he had brought 
back with him. The poet handed over to his friend an inferior 
satire which he had named Hints from Hoi-ace. Dallas, dis- 
appointed, asked, " Have you no other result of your travels? " 
To this Byron answered, " A few short pieces, and a lot of 
Spenserian stanzas ; not worth troubling you with, but you are 
welcome to them." These " Spenserian stanzas" of which 
their author thought so little were the first two cantos of Childe 
Harold, whose publication, in the spring of 1812, brought 
immediate and widespread popularity. " I awoke one morn- 
ing and found myself famous," said the poet. These first two 
cantos of Childe Harold, with their melancholy young hero, 
their declamatory rhetoric, and their commonplaces, were ex- 
actly on the level of their age, and suited the public taste 
to perfection. It may be doubted whether the two later and 
infinitely finer cantos, written several years afterwards, could 
possibly have created so tremendous a sensation. 

Byron's youth, personal beauty, rank, and genius now lifted 
him to the pinnacle of social favor. He posed as a mere liter- 
ary dilettante, — a lord who amused himself by occasional 
ventures into literature, and aimed to discriminate sharply 
between professional writers, whom he affected to despise, 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

and men of rank who condescended to dabble in letters. This, 

however, was only a phase, and passed away as Byron grew 

to take his art more seriously. These were years 
Byron's so- . 

ciai and liter- of unalloyed social and literary triumphs; also, 
ary popularity ^ must ^ confess^ of dissipation, and of poetic 
power expended upon unworthy achievements. But Byron's 
literary activity was remarkable. The success of his Childe 
Harold stimulated him to further effort. His verse romances 
of Eastern life poured forth in astonishing profusion. Between 
May, 1 8 13 and 18 16, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The 
Corsair, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina were writ- 
ten and published. All are variations on one single theme, 
with but one hero under many disguises, and that hero Byron 
himself. Some of these tales were written in the meter that 
Scott had rendered popular, and, though inferior in many 
ways to Mawnion and its companion pieces, quite eclipsed 
the fresher and more wholesome romances of the older poet. 
On the first day of its publication The Corsair sold ten thou- 
sand copies : and the total profits from all the 
The Eastern -, , , , ^ 

romances; tales amounted to several thousand pounds. But 

"Hebrew Byron wrote for love of writing, not for money, 
Melodies" - J 

though he needed the latter badly enough ; so 

with characteristic generosity he handed over the proceeds 
to his rather ungrateful relative, Dallas. The Giaour is per- 
haps the best of these tales, now little read and almost for- 
gotten, which represent the literary fashion of a day, and to 
the taste of the present generation seem commonplace and 
crude. Hebrew Melodies, however, published early in 181 5, 
contained some excellent lyrics, among others the match- 
less She Walks in Beauty and the favorite Destruction of 
Sennacherib. 

Byron made several speeches in Parliament, and created a 
favorable impression. As a born orator and a vigorous protester 



xxiv SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

against what he considered oppression and tyranny, he might, 
Byron in Par- perhaps, have become a great parliamentary figure ; 
liament Du t ft j s fortunate for literature that his energies 

were turned into other channels. 

At this time Byron wore an air of rather pretentious melan- 
choly, which probably was sincere enough, but of which he 
was entirely too conscious. Though not without some excuse 
for his despondency, — the death of his mother, the recent loss 
of several intimate friends, the constant sense of his lameness, 
— he was still a born actor, and happy only when in the lime- 

B ron's mei- n § nt - The P ose was P°P u l ar an d effective. In 
ancnoiy.Au- London, Byronic melancholy became the vogue, 
gus a eig E ven the poet's very peculiarities of dress were 
imitated. Into this unwholesome atmosphere entered at least 
one refreshing influence. Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister, 
visited him in London in June, 1813. This visit strengthened 
their mutual affection, and the strong and beautiful bonds 
binding the brother and sister together were severed only 
by death. 

Among all the great men whom the poet met in his London 
life, none impressed him more than Scott. The mighty 
" Wizard of the North," whose poetic star had been eclipsed 
by Childe Harold, extended to the younger poet a generous 
appreciation and sympathy that could not fail to conciliate 
even one so resentful as Byron of any air of patronage and 
condescension. The two met in London in the spring of 
1 8 15, and again in September of the same year. Of Byron, 
Scott said : " What I liked about him, besides his 

Walter Scott , . , . . 

boundless genius, was his generosity 01 spirit as 
well as of purse, and his utter contempt of all the affectations 
of literature. . . . He wrote from impulse, never from effort, 
and therefore I have always reckoned Burns and Byron the 
most genuine poetic geniuses of my time, and of half a century 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

before me. We have many men of high poetic talents, but none 
of that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural waters." 
Byron felt that the time had come for him to marry ; and 
he now, at the age of twenty-six, deliberately made his choice 
— or, rather, allowed it to be made for him. Anna Isabella 
Milbanke was pretty, clever, and accomplished. More than 
this, she was the daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, and an 
heiress. A marriage was finally arranged between the poet, 
who needed money, and the heiress, who appreciated fame 
and social position. The marriage, which took place on Jan- 
uary 2, 1815, was bound to be unhappy, and so it proved. 

Lady Byron probably at first loved her husband, 
Marriage to ... 

Miss Mil- but loved herself more, and was quite intolerant 

banke; sepa- f sucn irregularities as marked his social career ; 
ration . 

and Byron s character — impatient of restraint, 

self-centered, moody, passionate — was unintelligible to her. 

Only a year passed before Lady Byron, with her daughter 

Ada, one month old, left her husband forever. Her conduct 

has never been explained ; and Byron, so garrulous about 

most of his private affairs, maintained on this one topic an 

almost complete silence. It is enough for us to know that 

their temperaments were incompatible. But the whole affair 

is so notorious, and bore so important a relation to the poet's 

after life, that it cannot be passed over without some mention. 

The separation marked the reaction of favor against the 

darling of society. The British public, according to Macaulay, 

now entered upon "one of its periodical fits of morality." Byron 

had been overpraised ; he was now to be heartily condemned. 

Though he was no worse than other men of the same set, 

his misdemeanors were retailed, and innumerable 

Unpopularity- 
Scandals about him were wholly invented. The 

small literary fry, who envied his success, joyously swarmed 

about to smirch his name ; the newspapers attacked him 



xxvi SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

unsparingly and bitterly ; an unfortunate and tactless poem, 
which he wrote in an angry mood, added to the universal 
indignation. Byron was ostracized from society — was even 
hissed on the streets. He had before been famous ; he was 
now infamous. There was only one thing for him to do, — 
to leave England forever. Years later he wrote : " The press 
was active and scurrilous. . . . My name — which had been a 
knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the 
kingdom for William the Norman — was tainted. I felt that if 
what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true, I 
was unfit for England ; if false, England was unfit for me." 

So in April, 1816, he left his country, home, and friends. 
Final de ^ s nnances were > as usual, in a tangle. Two 

parture from years later Newstead had to be sold, and the pro- 
England ceeds — ninety thousand pounds — went mostly to 
pay off mortgages and debts. With this final departure from 
England began the fifth and last period of the poet's life. 

Byron's exile opened a new and better era of his poetic 
activity. It revealed to him a new world, and it was a tonic 
to his energies. Without it he might never have proved so 
great a poet and so powerful a force in European literature. 
He sailed first for Ostend, and traveled through Belgium, visit- 
ing Brussels, where his imagination heard the " sound of revelry 
by night," and Waterloo, where his " tread was on an empire's 
dust " ; he went up the Rhine, his " exulting and abounding 
river," and thence to Basel, Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva. At 
the last-named city he met Shelley. Byron now came into inti- 
mate contact with a poet whose idealism profoundly attracted 
B ron in mm ' Shelley taught him many things, and his influ- 

Switzeriand; ence is seen in several of Byron's productions, 
from the noble Prometheus to the more elaborate 
Prisoner of Chillon. Byron's attitude towards Shelley's poetry 
was not always favorable, — indeed, it is doubtful if he fully 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

appreciated the great genius of his friend ; but his admira- 
tion for Shelley the man was unbounded, — " the best and 
least selfish man I ever knew," he calls him. Shelley looked 
upon Byron as 

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like heaven was bent, 

but could scarcely sympathize with some of Byron's traits 
of character or habits of life. Nevertheless, the friendship 
between the two poets, whose names are so often linked 
together, continued until the end. 

In September Byron journeyed through Switzerland, inci- 
dentally gathering material for his lyrical drama, Manfred, and 
for the later cantos of Childe Harold, in which the grandeur 
of the Alpine scenery plays so large a part. Already, in June, 
while detained by bad weather at a little village named Ouchy, 

near Lausanne, he had written The Prisoner of 
" The Prisoner 
ofchiiion-" Chillon, a tribute to moral and political liberty, 

" childe an d a tremendous advance over his earlier romances 

Harold " again . . 

in verse. About this time, too, he completed the 

third canto of Childe Harold. Switzerland had taught him her 
mighty lessons, and in October he crossed over into Italy, ac- 
companied by his friend Hobhouse, the companion of his earlier 
wanderings. They journeyed first to Verona, then to Ferrara 
(which inspired The Lament of Tasso),to Florence, to Rome 
(" the Niobe of nations," which he gloriously celebrates in the 
fourth canto of Childe Harold), and finally to his Mecca, 
Venice, the " sea Cybele, fresh from ocean." All through 
Tourthrou h ^is tour tne P oet k ac l been collecting material 
Italy; "Man- for some of his noblest productions; but for us 
the fairest flower of the Italian wandering is the 
fourth canto of Childe Harold, a glorification of Italy, which 
was finished in Venice in the early spring of 1818, about 



xxviii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

the same time with Manfred, a strange, mystical, dramatic 

poem bearing some general resemblance to Goethe's Faust. 

The period of Byron's Venetian residence — extending 

through the greater part of two years — is one over which 

any lover of his fame would gladly draw a veil. Such a life 

of excesses of every kind was unworthy of a true man, much 

more so of a great poet. He wallowed in the mire, with 

results disastrous to his health, character, and reputation. 

But, strangely enough, the period was one of 
Byron's life . . . ^ . . 

in Venice- intense literary activity. One elaborate poem 

"Mazeppa"; a ft_ er another was turned out, with seemingly 
"Don Juan" . ....... .... 

inexhaustible fertility, showing in the mam a steady 

growth in art and in power. To this period belong Beppo, 

Mazeppa, and the earliest cantos of his masterpiece, Don 

Juan. In August, 1818, he was visited by Shelley, who 

records their walks and talks in his Julian and Maddalo. 

Tom Moore also came to see him while he was living in 

Venice, and in his famous biography gives many interesting 

details about his visit. As at Newstead, Byron had filled his 

house with animals, and " Keep clear of the dog," " Take care, 

or the monkey will fly at you," were among his reassuring 

cautions to Moore as the two felt their way up the stairs in 

the dark. 

At this time, too, there came into Byron's life an influence 

which, though springing from an illegal relationship, brightened 

his existence and inspired his poetic genius. The Countess 

Guiccioli was the young and beautiful wife of an old Italian 

count. She was, furthermore, highly educated and attractive, 

with considerable depth of character and capacity for feeling. 

Byron and the countess met by chance ; the attachment 

countess between the two was immediate and enduring. 

Guiccioli Henceforth she played a large part in the poet's 

life. They were together now and again at Venice, Bologna, 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

Ravenna, Pisa, and Genoa, — in fact, until Byron left Italy 
for Greece. Whatever we of the present day may think of 
the character of the relationship, and certainly that is beyond 
approbation, it is admitted that the Countess Guiccioli was a 
refining influence in Byron's life. She was a faithful friend, 
and we must remember, in estimating her character, that 
Italian society at this period was somewhat too tolerant of 
such relationships. Any biography of Byron, however brief, 
which should omit some mention of so important a factor, 
would be essentially incomplete. 

After some two years at Venice, Byron removed to Bologna, 
and later to Ravenna. These changes of residence were dic- 
tated by the movements of the countess, whose 
Life at Ra- 
venna; liter- family, the Gambas, were ardent workers in the 

aryactivity; cause of Italian liberty. When one locality grew 
"Cain" 

uncomfortable for them by reason of the suspi- 
cions of the dominant Austrian government, they went else- 
where and continued their operations afresh. At Ravenna 
Byron's literary activity continued unabated. Here he wrote 
his brilliant satire, The Vision of Judgment, and entered the lists 
as a dramatist with the Venetian plays, Marino Faliero and 
The TwoFoscari, as well as with the more successful Sardana- 
palus. None of these, however, compares in power of imagi- 
nation or in splendor of expression with the great dramatic 
poem, Cain, written at about the same time. 

Byron had always been an ardent and probably sincere, 
though rather too declamatory, lover of liberty, both moral 
and political, and he had long been known to all Europe as 
" the poet of revolt." " I have simplified my politics into an 
utter detestation of all existing governments," he once said. 
His sympathy with the oppressed masses was rather conde- 
scending, but he was nevertheless quite ready to act upon his 
very positive convictions. Italy was secretly struggling for 



xxx SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

independence of the galling Austrian yoke. The conspirators 
were working largely through a society known as the Carbonari. 

Of this organization Byron's friends, the Gambas, 
tude toward were enthusiastic members. The author of the 
Italian free- fourth canto of Childe Harold and of The Prophecy 

of Dante, which was intended for the Italians as a 
vision of their independence, was naturally an object of sus- 
picion to the Austrians. For this Byron did not care a straw, 
and he delighted to flaunt his revolutionary principles in the 
very faces of his foes. He moved about with the Gambas, 
however, and after consulting with Shelley, left Ravenna for 
Pisa in October, 1821. At this place Shelley had secured for 
his use the Lanfranchi palace, in which Byron lived and worked 

industriously for ten months, riding and shooting, 
Life at Pisa ....... 

for amusement, and entertaining his friends. 

Shelley was near by, at Lerici, on the Gulf of Spezia. 

Long before this time Byron had become a great figure in 

the world's regard. The publication of one of his poems was 

an important literary event. From his work he derived a 

large income and could now afford to be independent. The 

tone of some of his later productions was such that his old 

London publisher, Murray, was unwilling to give them to the 

public. In order to control a medium for the circulation of 

his ideas and the publication of his poems, he conceived the 

Leigh Hunt n °ti° n of founding a periodical of his own. Largely 

and "The at Shelley's instigation, Leigh Hunt, the London 

radical and poet, was asked over to take charge of 

the new venture, which was to be named The Liberal. In July, 

1822, the Hunts — for the editor was accompanied by his wife 

and six children — appeared on the scene. Four numbers of 

The Liberal were published, the last in July, 1823. But the 

venture was a failure, mainly owing to the fact that, in the 

very nature of things, two such men as Hunt and Byron could 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

not agree. The Hunts were impecunious and improvident, and 
relied on Byron's bounty. Of this attitude the poet soon tired. 
The result was disruption and the financial failure of the paper. 

Before The Liberal had ceased publication, however, and 
while Leigh Hunt was still at Byron's house, occurred a trag- 
edy that plunged both men into mourning. In July, 1822, 
Shelley was drowned while sailing on the Gulf of Spezia. 
Byron was present at the cremation of the body, that weird 
Death of an d tragic event which has impressed itself so 
Shelley powerfully upon the imagination of mankind. 

In the following September Byron removed to Genoa, his 
final place of residence in Italy. Here he finished the six- 
teenth canto of Don Juan, still leaving the poem incomplete. 
This was his last work of any note. He now stood on the very 
pinnacle of poetic fame. He had proved his power as a lyrist, 
written one of the greatest of descriptive poems, accomplished 
Genoa; "Don something in the drama, and as narrative poet 
Juan" and satirist reigned supreme. Nothing, apparently, 

remained to be achieved in the realm of poetry. He was 
growing tired of it all, even of the applause and adulation 
that once were as music in his ears. Pleasure palled on him ; 
dissipation had left its inevitable and ugly mark upon his health 
and his noble personal beauty. He wanted new worlds to 
conquer, and soon came the opportunity. Greece was in the 
midst of a desperate struggle for independence of Turkey. 
Beset with foes without and within, she was in dire straits for 
Grecian lib- want °f money and competent leadership. In 
erty:anew England a "Greek Committee" of prominent 
men had been formed to promote the cause of 
Grecian independence. This committee felt the need of 
adding to their number some great name of powerful influ- 
ence among the Greeks themselves. In April, 1823, Byron 
was elected to membership. After a creditable hesitation he 



xxxii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

accepted, and offered money and counsel. Tired of inaction, 
dissatisfied with his former achievements, longing for new 
renown, and genuinely sympathizing with the Greeks, he 
threw himself into the cause with all his wonderful ardor and 
, energy. On July 14, 1823, he sailed for Greece 

parture for on the brig Hercules, which he had purchased 

and loaded with stores and arms. And now opens 
the last and by far the most creditable act in the complicated 
drama of the poet's life. 

In August Byron reached his destination, Cephalonia, and 
there remained until the end of the year, awaiting instruc- 
tions. With this period is connected an interesting and 
amusing experience that throws a peculiar side light upon 
certain aspects of the poet's character. Dr. Kennedy, a 
Scotch physician and a warm Presbyterian, was conducting a 

series of religious meetings at the neighboring 
nia-Dr.Ken- town of Argostoli. Byron, always a curious though 
nedy and re- sometimes a scoffing inquirer, had from the begin- 

ligion 

ning been interested in religion. Without any 
really justifiable basis, he had been looked upon in England, 
especially since the publication of Cain, as an utter atheist. 
Fond of religious disputation, and arguing acutely yet good- 
humoredly upon religious subjects, he invariably represented 
himself as a seeker after light. After attending Dr. Kennedy's 
meetings he grew to know and admire the sincerely good 
man, and there ensued between the two a series of elaborate 
theological discussions in which the poet seems to have had 
the best of it, though up to the end the good doctor was still 
hoping to bring his brilliant opponent to see the error of his 
ways. But Byron can scarcely with justice be called a scoffer 
at religion. His fundamental attitude toward such matters is 
rather that of a skeptical yet really earnest seeker after the 
actual truth as apart from superstition and sham. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

Finally, in December, Byron went to the stronghold of Mis- 

solonghi to join the Greek leader, Prince Mavrocordatos. He 

brought with him four thousand pounds of his personal loan 

and the magic of his presence. Daring and resourceful as he 

was, the situation that confronted him was enough to tax even 

his energy, sympathy, and clear judgment. But Byron had 

never shown himself in his true colors until confronted with a 

situation that called for all the qualities of a hero. 
Missolonghi; , . . 

Byron as gen- Everywhere about him was discord, intrigue, mis- 

erai and management, and disorder. In all this he showed 

himself a general and a statesman. At his touch 
unity sprang from discord, and order from confusion. Ships 
were built, fortifications repaired, troops organized and drilled. 
His resourcefulness and self-command were instant and un- 
failing. The Greeks recognized his ability by appointing him 
to lead the important military expedition against the Turkish 
stronghold, Lepanto ; but, in spite of his eagerness to be in 
the actual conflict, this attack never took place. For all his 
courage, Byron never had a chance to fight. 

On January 22, 1824, in the midst of confusion and alarms, 
His last ne wrote his last poem of any note, the lines on 

P oem(?) his thirty-sixth birthday. They breathe the new 

and nobler spirit that was now animating his life : 

The sword, the banner, and the field, 
Glory and Greece, around me see ! 

The Spartan, borne upon his shield, 
Was not more free. 

Pleasure, ease, luxury, self-contentment, even poetry, had 
been left behind forever. The hero had replaced the man of 
the world ; the soldier, the poet. About this time came the 
beginning of the end. Byron's health, undermined by wrong 
living and by the extremely ascetic regimen he insisted upon 



xxxiv SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

following, began to give way under the strain. Missolonghi 

was a fever-stricken place, which his friends were continually 

The begin- beseeching him to leave. But he stuck to his post, 

ning of the end though beset by sickness and burdened with heavy 

cares. When preparing for the attack against Lepanto, the 

Suliotes, forming a contingent of the Greek troops, revolted. 

This threw Byron into a convulsive attack, from which he had 

not recovered when the mutinous soldiers actually broke into 

his sick room, demanding redress. His courage and control 

of the situation, under these terrible circumstances, is said to 

have been sublime. 

Byron's will conquered. He rallied in health for a time, 

and displayed much of his former vivacity. On March 30 he 

was presented with the freedom of the city of Missolonghi. 

But the end was not far off. On April 9 he rode out, was 

drenched with rain, yet insisted upon returning home in a 

_ . ... boat. He was soon seized with a rheumatic 
Byron's ill- 
ness and fever, and all the efforts of his physicians proved 

unavailing. In his delirium he fancied himself 
leading the attack against Lepanto, crying, " Forwards ! for- 
wards ! follow me!" We cannot fail to recall the deathbed 
of " the great emperor who with the great poet divided the 
wonder of Europe." He mentioned Lady Byron, Augusta his 
sister, Ada his daughter; and on April 19, with " Now I shall 
go to sleep," he died. 

Byron's death, to the Greeks, came in the nature of a 
national calamity. Greece was plunged into mourning. She 
had lost a brilliant and heroic champion, the one man above 
all others on whom her hopes were fixed. " England has lost 
her brightest genius, Greece her noblest friend," wrote Colonel 
interment at Stanhope, another distinguished worker for Grecian 
Hucknaii freedom. The remains of the poet were sent to 
England and arrived there in May. Interment in Westminster 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

Abbey was refused, and Byron was laid to rest on July 16, 
1824, beside his mother and his ancestors, in the village 
churchyard of Hucknall. 

Byron's personality and character have furnished food for 
almost endless discussion. All who knew him agreed as to his 
wonderful personal beauty and attractiveness. Scott said he 
had " a countenance to dream of," and an irresistible charm 
of address. His head was small, and covered with light-brown 
curls ; his complexion, colorless ; his eyes, light gray ; his 
mouth, perfectly molded. Various portraits agree 
pearance ; in giving him a high forehead, regularity of fea- 
character tures, and an expression of brilliant intelligence. 
His manner with his intimates was genial and delightful, 
though not always equable ; his love of fun was almost supera- 
bundant, manifesting itself in flashes between fits of melan- 
choly and depression. To the latter his lameness and his early 
environment, as well as his irregular habits, may have largely 
contributed. Child of his strange race as he was, Byron was 
also the victim of unfortunate circumstances. This should 
never be forgotten when we are estimating his wonderfully 
complex and paradoxical traits of character. 

What were those traits, forming the personality that so 
powerfully impressed itself upon a whole continent? On the 
one side, absurd vanity, often displayed in many unworthy 
little ways ; habitual arrogance and pride of rank ; an uncer- 
tain temper, impulsive, even violent, running into extravagant 
Byron's un- fits of passion ; a tendency towards self-indulgence 
attractive side t h at led him, genius and poet though he was, into 
criminal excesses. 

On the other and better side we find dauntless physical cour- 
age, and moral courage even more splendid than the physical ; 
a remarkable fondness for small, defenseless creatures of all 
kinds; a warm heart for his friends and lasting fidelity and 



xxxvi SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

attachment to the few who befriended and believed in him ; 
princely generosity of heart and purse ; but, even above all 
His finer tn i s > the two supreme traits that make the man's 

qualities poetry so great and enduring, — an intense and 
consuming hatred of hypocrisy and sham in every phase of life, 
and just as sincere and ardent a love of every kind of liberty. 
Underneath all this superficial contradiction lay a will of 
iron and a capacity for genuine self-sacrifice and heroism that 
rose to actual greatness when occasion demanded, as at Misso- 
longhi. Byron was not a good man, but his character so colors 
and molds his poetry as to render it inevitable that we should 
know something of his extraordinary personality. Compound 
of gold and clay that he was, his often sordid and unworthy 
Afinaiesti- life was fairly redeemed by his. heroic death, and 
mate so we may still apply to him at least a part of 

Dr. Johnson's beautiful tribute to his friend Goldsmith, — 
" Enough of his failings ; he was a very great man." 

Farewell, thou Titan fairer than the gods ! 

Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit, 
Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, 

Unpraised, unpraisable beyond thy merit ; 
Chased, like Orestes, by the furies' rods, 

Like him at length thy peace dost thou inherit ; 
Beholding whom, men think how fairer far 

Than all the steadfast stars the wandering star ! 

Andrew Lang, in Letters to Dead Authors 

BYRON AS A POET 

For almost a century Byron's place as a poet has been the 
theme of constant dispute. Was he truly a great poet, or 
merely a retailer of cheap commonplaces clothed in preten- 
tious rhetoric? The distinguished English critic, Professor 
Saintsbury, says : " Byron seems to me a poet distinctly of 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

the second class, and not even of the best kind of second. 
. . . His verse is to the greatest poetry what melodrama is 
to tragedy, what plaster is to marble, what pinchbeck is to 
gold" (A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 80). 
But Mr. Matthew Arnold, perhaps the most famous of all 
English literary critics, himself a great poet, says, on 
opinion; the contrary : " Wordsworth and Byron stand, it 

Saintsburyand seems to me, first and preeminent in actual per- 

Arnold . . . .. 

formance, a glorious pair, among the English poets 
of this century. . . . When the year 1900 is turned, and our 
nation comes to recount her poetic glories in the century 
which has then just ended, the first names with her will be 
these " {Essay on Byron). 

Which shall we follow? or shall we rather find a safer point 
of view between these two extremes? 

Byron was born in the midst of an era of revolution. Five 
years before his birth the American colonies had gained their 
independence. One year after his birth the French Revolu- 
tion began. For the fifty years following that terrible social 
cataclysm the progress of liberal ideas was widespread and 
rapid. All Europe felt the new impulse toward national 
independence and personal liberty, toward free thought, free 
speech, and democracy. Byron saw Napoleon's rise to supreme 
An age of power, his victories at Austerlitz, Marengo, Jena, 
revolution anc j Wagram ; his retreat from Moscow, and his final 
overthrow at Waterloo. He saw old institutions, beliefs, and 
customs summoned before the bar of reason and overthrown 
almost in a day. He felt the powerful impulse toward new 
thought in politics, literature, and religion. He saw a common 
revolutionary sentiment make Liberty, Democracy, Reason, 
Revolution, the watchwords in almost every country of Europe. 

Byron and Shelley, far beyond all other English poets, were 
the children of this new thought. They were indeed " poets 



xxxviii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

of revolt," not only abreast of the new movements in every 
sphere of activity, but even ahead of them. While Words- 
worth was quietly communing with Nature in his Westmore- 
land hills ; while Coleridge was dreaming about the supernatural, 
and Keats was worshiping Beauty, apart from the crowd, — 
Byron and Shelley, the apostles of revolution, were living and 
The "poets working in a world of men. Byron's poems, from 
of revolt" fi rst t Jas^ r i n g vvith vigorous protests against 
" tyranny," eloquent praise of "liberty," national and per- 
sonal, and bitter denunciation of oppression, superstition, and 
worn-out customs. In the main, the protest and the praise 
are real and sincere ; almost always they are eloquent ; often 
they are splendid. If Cain is a voice crying out for rational- 
ism in religion, Childe Harold is one long, fervent tribute to 
liberty and democracy, and Don Juan is one superb protest 
against superstition and sham. 

The reforms that Byron advocated, the ideas that he set 
forth through the entire range of his poems, were not fully to 
reach their fruition until almost a generation after his death, 
in the revolutions of 1848; but even during his lifetime he 
was to such an extent the voice of his revolutionary age that 
his name became to Europe at large the synonym of progress 
and revolt. The energy and power with which he set forth 
his opinions, and the pomp and circumstance with which he 
gathered up and interpreted the thought and emotion of a 
^ , continent, dazzled the public and made it captive 

Byron's con- 1 r 

temporary to the splendid sweep and eloquence of his verse. 
This was his unique triumph while he lived, and it 
has since proved almost his undoing. That Byron was a great 
historic figure cannot be gainsaid ; but what remains, now that 
the reforms he so ardently advocated have long since become 
established facts, and the daring ideas he advanced have long 
been platitudes? 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

Byron's fascinating personality also had its effect on his 
immense contemporary fame ; but the time has passed 

When thousands counted every groan, 
And Europe made his woe her own. 

The spell that enchanted Europe has dissolved ; yet some- 
thing more substantial still remains to be considered. 

Byron, as we have seen, even now figures to the continent 
as the greatest English poet next to Shakespeare. His works 
have been translated into every important foreign language. 
No less a poet and critic than Goethe has pronounced him 
" the greatest genius of the century." Castelar, the Spaniard ; 
Sainte-Beuve and Taine, the Frenchmen ; Elze, the German ; 
His influence Mazzini, the Italian, who said, " Byron led the 
upon European genius of Britain on a pilgrimage throughout all 
literature Europe," — all bear witness to his tremendous 
influence and universal popularity. So unanimous a verdict 
should make us pause, and lead us to examine the evidence 
on which it is founded. 

Byron's literary activity was phenomenal. Within eighteen 

years he wrote, as Mr. Coleridge reminds us, two epics or 

quasi-epics, twelve tales, eight dramas, seven or eight satires, 

and a multitude of occasional poems, lyrics, and 

Byron's ver- f ' 

satmty; lack epigrams. This is the sum of his achievement, — 

of dramatic ver satile one. Though his play Werner for a 

talent and of . 

architectonic time held the stage, as a dramatic poet he is vir- 
iacuity tually a failure. A dramatist must possess the gift 

of objective characterization. In this Byron was singularly 
lacking. So self-centered a poet could create no real figures 
apart from himself. " He made the men after his own image ; 
the women, after his own heart." Another fatal defect is 
Byron's lack of what is called " the architectonic faculty," — 
the ability to plan and construct a harmonious and complete 



xl SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

whole. Childe Harold is but a series of short poems; even 
Don Juan is little more. Rendered a unit by the poet's 
personality only, Byron's masterpiece fascinates the mature 
reader not through the adventures of its hero, but through the 
poet's own comments and reflections, and through interspersed 
lyric passages of singular beauty and power. 

This same failure in dramatic characterization follows us 
through all of Byron's earlier narrative poems. His elaborate 
Eastern tales, while they show narrative verve, and contain 
Byron's nar- admirable passages, have long since lost their 
rative poems pristine savor. The two narrative poems which 
still live as wholes, and must live indefinitely it would now 
seem, are The Prisoner of Chilloti and Mazeppa, which are 
thoroughly true and sincere. 

Byron's place as a lyric poet is still in dispute. Certainly 
his really fine lyrics are few in number, but the author of She 
Walks in Beauty, Stanzas to Augusta, On this Day I complete 
my Thirty-sixth Year, cannot be refused recognition as a lyrist. 
Byron as a That Byron is not a supreme lyric poet is due rather 
jyrist t o lack of effort than to lack of power. The auto- 

biographic character of his best lyrics, laying bare to the whole 
earth, utterly and some would say shamelessly, the poet's inmost 
emotions, is redeemed by the powerful and complex person- 
ality inspiring them and giving them interest and value. 

Childe Harold is beyond doubt a great contribution to 

descriptive and reflective poetry ; and here Byron approaches 

that climax of his power to be fully .attained only in Don Juan. 

As a satirist Byron is quite supreme among Eng- 
Asdescrip- ,. , _,/ , ,., . 

tivepoet; as lisn poets. Here we need not qualify our praise. 

satirist; "Don Satire in the hands of this master is no longer sor- 
juan" . .... . 

did and realistic ; it is transfigured into something 

highly imaginative and ideal. Acute criticism of life, exten- 
sive knowledge of human nature, the most abounding and 



INTRODUCTION xli 

inexhaustible energy, — all this abides in Byron's masterpiece, 
his chief claim to immortality. 

What is Byron's place among the world poets, the supreme 
few? Homer, /Eschylus, Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Mil- 
ton, Goethe, perhaps one or two others, were poets of the 
highest architectonic power, and of unfailing art. Above all 
Byron's place *kis, ^eir § reat wor ^s show a " high serious- 
amongthe ness " and a noble and consistent outlook on life, 
world poets Among these poets of the first Qrder it ig doubt- 
ful if Byron can with any justice be ranked. Though Don 
Juan is an elaborate work of highly sustained art, it is defi- 
cient in characterization, in organism, and in a serious and 
consistent point of view. Thus, superb as it is, it yet can 
scarcely be placed among the world's supreme masterpieces 
of poetry. 

We must, then, compare Byron with the poets of the second 
order, and, naturally, with those of England. Even here, 
as we have seen, reigns a variety of opinion. As a close 
and accurate student of nature and a portrayer of her more 
intimate and peculiar beauties, Byron cannot compare with 
Wordsworth. Neither has he the power to take a seem- 
Byronascom- m gty commonplace or prosaic subject and lift it 
pared with his m j- poetry by the magic of his treatment, as do 

English con- 

temporaries Wordsworth and Arnold. He has nothing of the 
and successors haunting magic and rich melodies of Coleridge ; 
the delicacy, the sensuous beauty, as well as the perfect 
expression, of Keats, are utterly beyond him. With Shelley, 
as a lyric poet and a master of music, he cannot for an instant 
be compared. Tennyson is an infinitely finer and more care- 
ful artist. Byron is lacking in the sound knowledge of life, 
the wide scholarship, the profound insight into the human 
soul, that render Browning so potent a force in poetry. What, 
then, remains? 



xlii SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

The answer is easily found. Any one who reads the few 
selections in the present volume cannot fail to be impressed 
with the one trait that, above everything else, marks them as 
a whole, — their fire, their vigor, their "exulting and abound- 
ing " energy. In this Byron takes his place second only to 
Shakespeare. Energy and strength are no small poetical assets. 
Byron is the greatest singer of the mountains and the sea. 
The Apostrophe to the Ocean, the stanzas on the Alps, the 
some perma- Rhine, the Marble Cascade, in the energy and 
of 'b ron^s 168 swee P °f their splendid verse, are worthy of their 
poetry theme. Byron, too, can make the dead past live 

again as can no other poet : he finds out the poetry in history 
and quickens it to life. We are swept along with him in the 
impetuous torrent of his verse, and inspired by the poet's own 
emotion. 

It is idle to say that Byron is only too often a faulty artist, 
careless, sometimes even uncouth. He does not belong to the 
order of the poets of art. He worked on a large scale, — painted 
Byron not an on an immense canvas in vivid colors. To assert, 
art poet furthermore, that Byron says only the thing that 

.is obvious, is instantly to provoke the answer that he says that 
thing as no other could, and glorifies it while saying it. He is 
perhaps not a profoundly original thinker, yet he expressed, 
interpreted, and applied the thought of a whole continent. A 
definite philosophy of life and coherent teaching he never 
attempted, but he voiced universal hopes and aspirations in 
spirited and inspiring verse. His faults of technic, even his 
frequent lapses from good taste, are forgotten in 
greatness : ms actual greatness. After reading all of his work, 
sincerity and — unequal, disappointing, crude, as much of it 
strength . n „ ^\, .,,,«., 

is, — we must finally say, with Mr. Swinburne, that 

" his is the splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity 
and strength." 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

REFERENCES 

The standard, and apparently definitive, edition of the complete 
works of Lord Byron is that published by Mr. John Murray of 
London. In this edition the prose works, in six volumes, are edited 
by Mr. R. W. Prothero ; and the poetical works, in seven volumes, 
are edited by Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge. A one-volume edition, 
The Poetical Works of Lord Byron, is also published by Mr. John 
Murray, with introduction and notes by Mr. Coleridge. Both editions 
are imported into this country by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
An excellent one-volume edition is that edited by Mr. Paul Elmer 
More, and published by Houghton Mifflin Company. 

For a further study of Byron and his poems the student will find 
the following critical and biographical books and articles helpful and 
interesting : 

Byron, by John Nichol, in the English Men of Letters Series. 
Lord Byron, by Hon. Roden Noel, in the Great Writers Series. 
Essay on Moore's Life of Lord Byron, Macaulay. 
Byron, by Matthew Arnold, in Essays in Criticism, Second Series. 
The Byron Revival, by W. P. Trent, in The Authority of Criticism. 
Byron, by Theodore Watts-Dunton, in the revised edition of Cham- 
bers's Cyclopedia of English Literature. 

Needless to say, the bibliography of Byron is almost endless. 
It is not so easy, however, to find estimates of his genius which 
err neither on the side of undue depreciation nor on that of exces- 
sive praise. There is only one way by which to arrive at a satisfac- 
tory conclusion, — and that is by a thorough and careful reading of 
Byron's works. 



SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 



LACHIN Y GAIR 

This poem was first printed in Hours of Idleness, 1807. It is prob- 
ably the best of Byron's juvenile poems. 

" Lachin y Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, 
towers proudly preeminent in the northern Highlands, near Invercauld. 
One of our modern tourists mentions it as the highest mountain, per- 
haps, in Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most 
sublime and picturesque amongst our ' Caledonian Alps.' Its appearance 
is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Near 
Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection 
of which has given birth to these stanzas." — Byron'' s note 



AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses ! 
±~\. In you let the minions of luxury rove ; 
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes, 

Though still- they are sacred to freedom and love : 
Yet, Caledonia, belov'd are thy mountains, 

Round their white summits though elements war ; 
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains, 

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr. 

II 

Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd : 
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid ; 

On chieftains, long perish'd, my memory ponder'd, 
As daily I strode through the pine- cover 'd glade ; 



2 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

I sought not my home till the day's dying glory 
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star ; 

For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, 

Disclos'd by the natives of dark Loch na Garr. 

Ill 
" Shades of the dead ! have I not heard your voices 

Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale ? " 
Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices, 

And rides on the wind, o'er his own Highland vale ! 
Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy mist gathers, 

Winter presides in his cold icy car : 
Clouds there encircle the forms of my Fathers ; 1 

They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr. 

IV 
"111 starr'd, though brave, did no visions foreboding 

Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause ? " 
Ah ! were you destin'd to die at Culloden, 2 

Victory crown'd not your fall with applause : 
Still were you happy : in Death's earthy slumber 

You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar ; 
The Pibroch 3 resounds, to the piper's loud number, 

Your deeds, on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr. 

V 

Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you, 
Years must elapse ere I tread you again : 

Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you, 
Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain : 

1 Many of Byron's maternal ancestors, the Gordons, fought for the Stuart 
Pretender, Prince Charles. 

2 Culloden : the battle that put an end to the hopes of the House of Stuart. 
It was fought near Inverness, Scotland, April 16, 1746. 

3 Pibroch : the martial music played on the bagpipe, but in this instance 
Byron probably refers to the instrument itself. 



MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART 

England ! thy beauties are tame and domestic, 
To one who has rov'd on the mountains afar : 

Oh ! for the crags that are wild and majestic, 

The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr. 



MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART 

Zoirj /xov, eras ayairoi 

This, perhaps the most popular of Byron's lyrics, was written at 
Athens in 1810, and addressed to a young girl, Theresa Macri, daughter 
of Byron's landlady, the widow of a former English vice consul. The 
Greek refrain means " My life, I love you." 



MAID of Athens, ere we part, 
Give, oh give me back my heart ! 
Or, since that has left my breast, 
Keep it now, and take the rest ! 
Hear my vow before I go, 
Zuirj /xov, eras ay air Si. 

II 

By those tresses unconfined, 
Wooed by each ^Egean wind ; 
By those lids whose jetty fringe 
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge ; 
By those wild eyes like the roe, 
Zto?7 /xov, eras ayairw. 



Ill 



By that lip I long to taste ; 
By that zone-encircled waist; 



SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

By all the token-flowers that tell 
What words can never speak so well ; 
By Love's alternate joy and woe, 
Ziorj fxov, eras aya,7ra>. 

IV 
Maid of Athens ! I am gone : 
Think of me, sweet ! when alone. 
Though I fly to Istambol, 1 
Athens holds my heart and soul : 
Can I cease to love thee ? No ! 
Zwrj fxov, eras dya7rto. 

MODERN GREECE 

(From The Giaour) 

HE who hath bent him o'er the dead 
Ere the first day of Death is fled, 
The first dark day of Nothingness, 
The last of Danger and Distress, 
(Before Decay's effacing fingers 
Have swept the lines where Beauty lingers,) 
And marked the mild angelic air, 
The rapture of Repose that 's there, 
The fixed yet tender traits that streak 
The languor of the placid cheek, 
And — but for that sad shrouded eye, 
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, 
And but for that chill, changeless brow, 
Where cold Obstruction's apathy 
Appals the gazing mourner's heart, 
As if to him it could impart 

1 Istambol : Constantinople. 



KNOW YE THE LAND? 5 

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon ; 

Yes, but for these and these alone, 

Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour, 

He still might doubt the Tyrant's power ; 20 

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, 

The first, last look by Death revealed ! 

Such is the aspect of this shore : 

'T is Greece, but living Greece no more ! 

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, 

We start, for Soul is wanting there. 

Hers is the loveliness in death, 

That parts not quite with parting breath ; 

But beauty with that fearful bloom, 

That hue which haunts it to the tomb, 30 

Expression's last receding ray, 

A gilded Halo hovering round decay, 

The farewell beam of Feeling past away ! 
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, 
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth ! 



KNOW YE THE LAND? 

This introduction to The Bride of Abydos, written in 1813, was 
perhaps suggested by the opening lines of Goethe's Mignon: 
" Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bliihn ? " 



KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime ? 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? 
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine ; 



6 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume, 

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul 1 in her bloom ; 

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute ; 

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, 

In colour though varied, in beauty may vie, 

And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye ; 

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine — 

Tis the clime of the East — 'tis the land of the Sun — 

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? 

Oh ! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell 

Are the hearts which they bear and the tales which they tell. 

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY 

(From Hebrew Melodies) 

Byron, at the request of a friend, wrote a number of lyrics to be 
set to music. In April, 1815, these were published, with the music, 
under the title of Selections of Hebrew Melodies. Though the poet was, 
or pretended to be, ashamed of the volume, at leas-t five of its twenty- 
three poems have achieved immortality. Only fifteen are on Biblical 
themes; and the first in order, She Walks in Beauty, has for its sub- 
ject Anne Horton, who married Byron's cousin, Robert Wilmot. 
This is perhaps Byron's most finished lyric poem, though written 
long before his poetic power reached its climax. 

I 

SHE walks in Beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; 
And all that 's best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes : 
Thus mellowed to that tender light 
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 

1 Gul : the rose. 



SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE 

II 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impaired the nameless grace 

Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face ; 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

Ill 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent ! 



SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE 

The death of Saul is related in i Samuel xxxi ; though Byron's 
Song is of course purely imaginary. 

I 

WARRIORS and Chiefs ! should the shaft or the sword 
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, 
Heed not the corse, though a King's, in your path : 
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath ! 

II 

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, 
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, 
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet ! 
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet. 



SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

III 

Farewell to others, but never we part, 
Heir to my Royalty — Son of my heart ! 
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway, 
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day ! 1 



VISION OF BELSHAZZAR 

The Vision of Belshazzar is based upon Daniel v, 



THE King was on his throne, 
The Satraps thronged the hall 
A thousand bright lamps shone 

O'er that high festival. 
A thousand cups of gold, 

In Judah deemed divine — 
Jehovah's vessels hold 

The godless Heathen's wine ! 

II 

In that same hour and hall, 

The fingers of a hand 
Came forth against the wall, 

And wrote as if on sand : 
The fingers of a man ; — 

A solitary hand 
Along the letters ran, 

And traced them like a wand. 

1 In this last stanza Saul addresses Jonathan. 



VISION OF BELSHAZZAR 

III 

The monarch saw, and shook, 

And bade no more rejoice ; 
All bloodless waxed his look, 

And tremulous his voice. 
" Let the men of lore appear, 

The wisest of the earth, 
And expound the words of fear, 

Which mar our royal mirth." 

IV 

Chaldea's seers are good, 

But here they have no skill ; 
And the unknown letters stood 

Untold and awful still. 
And Babel's men of age 

Are wise and deep in lore ; 
But now they were not sage, 

They saw — but knew no more c 



A captive in the land, 

A stranger and a youth, 
He heard the King's command, 

He saw that writing's truth. 
The lamps around were bright, 

The prophecy in view ; 
He read it on that night, — 

The morrow proved it true. 

VI 

" Belshazzar's grave is made, 
His kingdom passed away, 



10 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

He, in the balance weighed, 
Is light and worthless clay ; 

The shroud, his robe of state, 
His canopy the stone ; 

The Mede is at his gate ! 

The Persian on his throne ! " 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB 

See 2 Kings xviii and xix for the historical incident. 

I 

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

II 

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen : 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 

Ill 

For the angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved — and forever grew still ! 

IV 

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC II 

V 
And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail : 
And the tents were all silent — the banners alone — 
The lances unlifted — the trumpet unblown. 

VI 

And. the widows of Ashur 1 are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 

STANZAS FOR MUSIC 

THERE 'S NOT A JOY THE WORLD CAN GIVE 

O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros 
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater 
Felix ! in imo qui scatentem 
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit. 

— Gray's Poemata 

These stanzas were written on hearing of the death of the Duke of 
Dorset, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting, in March, 
i Si 5. Dorset had been among Byron's warmest friends at Harrow. 

" Do you remember the lines I sent you early last year ? . . . I 
mean those beginning, ' There's not a joy the world can give,' etc., on 
which I pique myself as being the truest, though the most melancholy, 
I ever wrote." — Byron' 's letter to Moore, March, 18 16 

I 

THERE 'S not a joy the world can give like that it takes 
away, 
When the glow of early thought declines in Feeling's dull decay ; 
'Tis not on Youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades 

so fast, 
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere Youth itself be past. 

1 Ashur : the highest god of the Assyrians ; but the word here stands for the 
country of Assyria itself. 



12 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

II 

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness 
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess : 
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain 
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again. 

Ill 
Then the mortal coldness of the soul like Death itself comes 

down ; 
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own ; 
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, 
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears. 

IV 

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the 

breast, 
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope 

of rest ; 
'T is but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath, 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath. 

V 

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, — or be what I have been, 
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished 

scene ; 
As springs, in deserts found, seem sweet, all brackish though 

they be, 
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to 

me. 



NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL 1 3 

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL 

(From the French) 

This poem was written in London in 1815, soon after the battle 
of Waterloo. It is one of several productions concerned with Napo- 
leon, " the great Emperor who with the great poet divided the won- 
der of Europe." The anapaestic meter employed in this and several 
other of Byron's most popular poems is one that lends itself easily 
to spirited effects. It was a great favorite with Tom Moore, whose 
influence is clearly seen both here and elsewhere, as in the Stanzas for 
Music and Stanzas written between Florence and Pisa. 



FAREWELL to the Land where the gloom of my Glory 
Arose and o'ershadowed the earth with her name — 
She abandons me now — but the page of her story, 
The brightest or blackest, is filled with my fame. 
I have warred with a World which vanquished me only 
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far ; 
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely, 
The last single Captive to millions in war. 

II 

Farewell to thee, France ! when thy diadem crowned me, 

I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, — 

But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee, 

Decayed in thy glory and sunk in thy worth. 

Oh ! for the veteran hearts that were wasted 

In strife with the storm, when their battles were won — 

Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted, 

Had still soared with eyes fixed on Victory's sun ! 

Ill 

Farewell to thee, France ! — but when Liberty rallies 
Once more in thy regions, remember me then, — 



14 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

The Violet 1 still grows in the depth of thy valleys ; 

Though withered, thy tear will unfold it again. 

Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us, 

And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice — 

There are links which must break in the chain that has bound 

us, 
Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice ! 

STANZAS FOR MUSIC 

(Written in England, March, 1816) 

I 

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters 
With a magic like thee ; 
And like music on the waters 

Is thy sweet voice to me : 
When, as if its sound were causing 
The charmed Ocean's pausing, 
The waves lie still and gleaming, 
And the lulled winds seem dreaming : 

II 

And the Midnight Moon is weaving 

Her bright chain o'er the deep ; 
Whose breast is gently heaving, 

As an infant's asleep : 
So the spirit bows before thee, 
To listen and adore thee ; 
With a full but soft emotion, 
Like the swell of Summer's ocean. 

1 The violet : when Napoleon was banished to Elba, in April, 1814, it was 
predicted by his partisans that he would return to France with the violets in the 
following spring. For this reason the violet was taken as the Napoleonic 
emblem. Now, though defeated and exiled, Napoleon is represented in the 
poem as hoping to return from St. Helena, as he did from Elba. 



FARE THEE WELL 



FARE THEE WELL 



15 



The sincerity of this poem, which was written in March, 18 [6, 
soon after the separation from Lady Byron and shortly before the 
poet's final departure from England, has been seriously questioned. 
It seems almost incredible that any man, even one so spectacular as 
Byron, could lay bare to the world such emotions. Yet, according to 
Byron, as quoted by Moore, the verses were written under stress of 
profound feeling, were not intended for publication, and were given 
to the public only " through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he 
suffered to take a copy." 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth; 
And Constancy lives in realms above; 
And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 
And to be wroth with one we love, 
Doth work like madness in the brain. 



But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining — 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 

A dreary sea now flows between, 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 

Shall wholly do away, I ween, 

The marks of that which once hath been. 

— Coleridge's Christabel 

FARE thee well ! and if forever, 
Still forever, fare thee well: 
Even though unforgiving, never 

' Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 
Would that breast were bared before thee 

Where thy head so oft hath lain, 
While that placid sleep came o'er thee 
Which thou ne'er canst know again : 
Would that breast, by thee glanced over, 

Every inmost thought could show ! 10 

Then thou would'st at last discover 
'Twas not well to spurn it so. 



16 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Though the world for this commend thee — 

Though it smile upon the blow, 
Even its praises must offend thee, 

Founded on another's woe : 
Though my many faults defaced me, 

Could no other arm be found, 
Than the one which once embraced me, 

To inflict a cureless wound ? 20 

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not — 

Love may sink by slow decay, 
But by sudden wrench, believe not 

Hearts can thus be torn away : 
Still thine own its life retaineth — 

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat ; 
And the undying thought which paineth 

Is — that we no more may meet. 
These are words of deeper sorrow 

Than the wail above the dead ; 30 

Both shall live — but every morrow 

Wake us from a widowed bed. 
And when thou would'st solace gather — 

When our child's first accents flow — 
Wilt thou teach her to say " Father ! " 

Though his care she must forego? 
W T hen her little hands shall press thee — 

When her lip to thine is pressed — 
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee — 

Think of him thy love had blessed ! 40 

Should her lineaments resemble 

Those thou never more may'st see, 
Then thy heart will softly tremble 

With a pulse yet true to me. 
All my faults perchance thou knowest — 

All my madness — none can know ; 



SONNET ON CHILLON 17 

All my hopes — where'er thou goest — 

Wither — yet with thee they go. 
Every feeling hath been shaken ; 

Pride — which not a world could bow — 50 

Bows to thee — by thee forsaken, 

Even my soul forsakes me now. 
But 't is done — all words are idle — ■ 

Words from me are vainer still ; 
But the thoughts we cannot bridle 

Force their way without the will. 
Fare thee well ! thus disunited — 

Torn from every nearer tie — 
Seared in heart — and lone — and blighted — 

More than this I scarce can die. 60 



SONNET ON CHILLON 

This sonnet, one of the noblest of its kind, though prefixed to 
The Prisoner of Chilton, was in fact written later than that poem as 
an especial tribute to the Swiss patriot, Bonnivard. 

Francois de Bonnivard was born near Geneva, in 1496, and suc- 
ceeded in 1510 to the priory of St. Victor, just outside the walls of 
the city. As an ardent republican, he espoused the cause of Geneva 
against the Duke of Savoy, on whose entrance into the city in 15 19 
Bonnivard was seized and imprisoned for two years at Grolee. Again, 
in 1530, he was captured by robbers and handed over to the Duke, 
who this time imprisoned him in the famous Castle of Chillon. Here 
Bonnivard remained for six years, until liberated by the Bernese and 
Genevese. By this time Geneva had established her freedom, and 
the patriot was honored and pensioned by the people for whom he 
had suffered so long. Bonnivard lived in peace through the remainder 
of his life, wrote a history of Geneva, and, when he died, either in 
1570 or in 157 1, left his books as a legacy to the city. 

ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art : 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 



18 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 

Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar — for 't was trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 

By Bonnivard ! — May none those marks efface ! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

Among the great lakes of the world, Geneva is famous for the 
beauty of its surroundings and the depth and purity of its waters. It 
was known to the Romans as Lacus Lemannus, whence Byron's favorite 
name for it, " Lake Leman." 

At the eastern end of Lake Geneva, on an isolated rock at the 
edge of the water, rises the picturesque building known as the Castle 
of Chillon, its walls washed by the waters of the lake, which here 
attain a depth of nearly one thousand feet. The foundations of the 
castle date from a very early period; though as it stands, with its 
one central tower surrounded by towers either semicircular or square, 
it is essentially of the thirteenth century. In the eighteenth century 
it was used as a state prison, and afterwards as an arsenal. In this 
building, rendered famous by his genius, Byron lays the scene of his 
Prisoner of Chilian. The hero of the poem is an entirely fictitious 
personage, whose dreadful captivity bears little resemblance to that 
of Bonnivard, although the latter is often and wrongly supposed to 
be the hero. But Byron himself says in the " advertisement" pre- 
fixed to The Prisoner of Chillon: " When this poem was composed I 
was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should 
have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate 
his courage and his virtues." 

But, although the whole story is purely imaginary, we must allow 
the poem — in addition to its high poetic truth — a certain measure 
of historical probability, when we remember the deeds done in the 
days of religious intolerance and persecution, before men had learned 
to acknowledge the freedom of the individual conscience. 

Byron wrote The Prisoner of Chillon in two days — June 26 and 27 
1816, while detained by bad weather at the village of Ouchy, near 



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Castle of Chillon 
Exterior 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



19 



Lausanne. In dignity of theme and in descriptive power it far sur- 
passes any of the narrative poems that preceded it. The hopeless 
captivity, the deaths of the two young brothers, the prisoner's grief, 
his unconsciousness of time and space in 

A sea of stagnant idleness, 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless; 

the carol of the bird arousing him from his despair, his contentment 
with captivity, and at last — the crown of his desolation — his regain- 
ing his freedom with a sigh, — all these are scenes that could be 
adequately pictured only by the hand of a great master. 



MY hair is grey, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night, 
As men's have grown from sudden fears : 
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, 

But rusted with a vile repose, 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil, 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned and barred — forbidden fare ; 
But this was for my father's faith 
I suffered chains and courted death ; 
That father perished at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake ; 
And for the same his lineal race 
In darkness found a dwelling-place ; 
We were seven — who now are one, 

Six in youth and one in age, 
Finished as they had begun, 

Proud of Persecution's rage; 
One in fire, and two in field, 
Their belief with blood have sealed, 
Dying as their father died, 
For the God their foes denied ; — 



20 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Three were in a dungeon cast, 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

II 

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, 

In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, 

There are seven columns, massy and grey, 

Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 

And through the crevice and the cleft 

Of the thick wall is fallen and left ; 

Creeping o'er the floor so damp, 

Like a marsh's meteor lamp : 

And in each pillar there is a ring, 

And in each ring there is a chain ; 1 
That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 
With marks that will not wear away, 40 

Till I have done with this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score 
When my last brother dropped and died, 
And I lay living by his side. 

Ill 

They chained us each to a column stone, 

And we were three — yet, each alone ; 

We could not move a single pace, 50 

We could not see each other's face, 

1 This is said to be an accurate description of the interior of the castle, except 
that the third column bears no trace of ever having had a ring. On the southern 
side of this third column is carved Byron's name. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 2 I 

But with that pale and livid light 

That made us strangers in our sight : 

And thus together — yet apart, 

Fettered in hand, but joined in heart, 

'T was still some solace in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth, 

To hearken to each other's speech, 

And each turn comforter to each 

With some new hope, or legend old, 60 

Or song heroically bold ; 

But even these at length grew cold. 

Our voices took a dreary tone, 

An echo of the dungeon stone, 

A grating sound, not full and free 

As they of yore were wont to be : 

It might be fancy — but to me 
They never sounded like our own. 

IV 

I was the eldest of the three, 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 70 

I ought to do — and did — my best — 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven — 

For him my soul was sorely moved : 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest ; 
For he was beautiful as day — 

(When day was beautiful to me 80 

As to young eagles, being free) — 

A polar day, which will not see 



22 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

A sunset till its summer 's gone, 

Its sleepless summer of long light, 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun : 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for naught but others' ills, 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 90 

Which he abhorred to view below. 



The other was as pure of mind, 
But formed to combat with his kind ; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 
And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy : — but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine : 
But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf ; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf, 
And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

VI 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls : 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow ; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent 
From Chillon's snow-white battlement, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 23 

Which round about the wave enthralls : 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 
Below the surface of the lake 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay : x 
We heard it ripple night and day ; 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked ; 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 

And wanton in the happy sky ; 

And then the very rock hath rocked, 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 
Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 

VII 

I said my nearer brother pined, 

I said his mighty heart declined ; 

He loathed and put away his food ; 

It was not that 'twas coarse and rude, 

For we were used to hunters' fare, 130 

And for the like had little care : 

The milk drawn from the mountain goat 

Was changed for water from the moat ; 

Our bread was such as captives' tears 

Have moistened many a thousand years, 

Since man first pent his fellow men 

Like brutes within an iron den ; 

But what were these to us or him ? 

These wasted not his heart or limb ; 

My brother's soul was of that mould 140 

1 The level of the dungeon is now about ten feet above the lake, and could 
never at any time have been below its surface. 



24 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Which in a palace had grown cold, 

Had his free breathing been denied 

The range of the steep mountain's side ; 

But why delay the truth? — he died. 

I saw, and could not hold his head, 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 

Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 

To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 

He died — and they unlocked his chain, 

And scooped for him a shallow grave 150 

Even from the cold earth of our cave. 

I begged them, as a boon, to lay 

His corse in dust whereon the day 

Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 

But then within my brain it wrought, 

That even in death his freeborn breast 

In such a dungeon could not rest. 

I might have spared my idle prayer — 

They coldly laughed — and laid him there : 

The flat and turfless earth above 160 

The being we so much did love ; 

His empty chain above it leant, 

Such Murder's fitting monument ! 

VIII 

But he, the favourite and the flower, 

Most cherished since his natal hour, 

His mother's image in fair face, 

The infant love of all his race, 

His martyred father's dearest thought, 

My latest care, for whom I sought 

To hoard my life, that his might be 170 

Less wretched now, and one day free ; 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 25 

He, too, who yet had held untired 

A spirit natural or inspired — 

He, too, was struck, and day by day 

Was withered on the stalk away. 

Oh, God ! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 

In any shape, in any mood : 

I 've seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I 've seen it on the breaking ocean 180 

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

I 've seen the sick and ghastly bed 

Of Sin delirious with its dread : 

But these were horrors — this was woe 

Unmixed with such — but sure and slow : 

He faded, and so calm and meek, 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 

So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 

And grieved for those he left behind ; 

With all the while a cheek whose bloom 190 

Was as a mockery of the tomb, 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 

As a departing rainbow's ray ; 

An eye of most transparent light, 

That almost made the dungeon bright ; 

And not a word of murmur — not 

A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope my own to raise, 

For I was sunk in silence — lost 200 

In this last loss, of all the most ; 

And then the sighs he would suppress 

Of fainting Nature's feebleness, 

More slowly drawn, grew less and less : 



26 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

I listened, but I could not hear ; 

I called, for I was wild with fear ; 

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 

Would not be thus admonished ; 

I called, and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 210 

And rushed to him : — I found him not, 

/only stirred in this black spot, 

/only lived, /only drew 

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew ; 

The last, the sole, the dearest link 

Between me and the eternal brink, 

Which bound me to my failing race, 

Was broken in this fatal place. 

One on the earth, and one beneath — 

My brothers — both had ceased to breathe ! 220 

I took that hand which lay so still — 

Alas ! my own was full as chill ; 

I had not strength to stir, or strive, 

But felt that I was still alive — 

A frantic feeling, when we know 

That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 
I had no earthly hope — but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 230 

IX 

What next befell me then and there 

I know not well — I never knew — 
First came the loss of light, and air, 

And then of darkness too : 
I had no thought, no feeling — none — 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 27 

Among the stones I stood a stone, 

And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 

As shrubless crags within the mist ; 

For all was blank, and bleak, and grey ; 

It was not night — it was not day ; 240 

It was not even the dungeon-light, 

So hateful to my heavy sight, 

But vacancy absorbing space, 

And fixedness — without a place ; 

There were no stars — no earth — no time — 

No check — no change — no good — no crime — 

But silence, and a stirless breath 

Which neither was of life nor death ; 

A sea of stagnant idleness, 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless. 250 

X 

A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird ; 
It ceased, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard ; 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery ; 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track ; 260 

I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before ; 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 
But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 



23 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And tamer than upon the tree ; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things, 

And seemed to say them all for me ! 270 

I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 
It seemed like me to want a mate, 
But was not half so desolate, 
And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love me so again, 
And cheering from my dungeon's brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free, 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 280 

But knowing well captivity, 

Sweet bird ! I could not wish for thine ! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise ; 
For — Heaven forgive that thought ! the while 
Which made me both to weep and smile — 
I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me ; 
But then at last away it flew, 

And then 'twas mortal well I knew, 290 

For he would never thus have flown — 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud ; 
Lone — -'as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere, 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 29 

XI 

A kind of change came in my fate, 300 

My keepers grew compassionate ; 

I know not what had made them so, 

They were inured to sights of woe, 

But so it was : — my broken chain 

With links unfastened did remain, 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart, 

And tread it over every part ; 

And round the pillars one by one, 310 

Returning where my walk begun, 

Avoiding only, as I trod, 

My brothers' graves without a sod ; 

For if I thought with heedless tread 

My step profaned their lowly bed, 

My breath came gaspingly and thick, 

And my crushed heart felt blind and sick. 

XII 

I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all, 320 

Who loved me in a human shape ; 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me : 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery ; 
I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad ; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 



30 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Once more, upon the mountains high, 330 

The quiet of a loving eye. 

XIII 

I saw them, and they were the same, 

They were not changed like me in frame ; 

I saw their thousand years of snow 

On high — their wide long lake below, 

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow ; 

I heard the torrents leap and gush 

O'er channelled rock and broken bush ; 

I saw the white- walled distant town, 1 

And whiter sails go skimming down ; 340 

And then there was a little isle, 

Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view ; 
A small green isle, 2 it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there were three tall trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers growing, 

Of gentle breath and hue. 350 

The fish swam by the castle wall, 
And they seemed joyous each and all ; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly ; 

1 Villeneuve. 

2 " Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, 
is a very small island ; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and 
over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not 
above three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect 
upon the view." — Byroifs fiote. 




Castle of Chillon 
Interior 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 31 

And then new tears came in my eye, 

And I felt troubled — and would fain 

I had not left my recent chain ; 

And when I did descend again, 

The darkness of my dim abode 360 

Fell on me as a heavy load ; 

It was as is a new-dug grave, 

Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 

And yet my glance, too much opprest, 

Had almost need of such a rest. 

XIV 

It might be months, or years, or days — 

I kept no count, I took no note — 
I had no hope my eyes to raise, 

And clear them of their dreary mote ; 
At last men came to set me free ; 370 

I asked not why, and recked not where j 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 

I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own ! 
And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home : 380 

With spiders I had friendship made, 
And watched them in their sullen trade, 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 
And why should I feel less than they? 
We were all inmates of one place, 
And I, the monarch of each race, 



32 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell ! 

In quiet we had learned to dwell ; 

My very chains and I grew friends, 

So much a long communion tends 390 

To make us what we are ; — even I 

Regained my freedom with a sigh. 



STANZAS TO AUGUSTA 

These stanzas were written at the Villa Diodati, near Geneva, July, 
1816, and form one of several poems addressed to the poet's half- 
sister, Augusta (Mrs. Leigh), who was true to her brother through all 
his career, and for whom he felt the warmest affection up to the very 
end of his life. This is but one among Byron's many autobiograph- 
ical poems, the egotism of which is amply redeemed by the revela- 
tion of a rich and interesting personality. 

I 

THOUGH the day of my Destiny 's over, 
And the star of my Fate hath declined, 
Thy soft heart refused to discover 

The faults which so many could find ; 
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, 

It shrunk not to share it with me, 
And the Love which my Spirit hath painted 
It never hath found but in Thee. 

II 
Then when Nature around me is smiling, 
The last smile which answers to mine, 
I do not believe it beguiling, 
, Because it reminds me of thine ; 
And when winds are at war with the ocean, 

As the breasts I believed in with me, 
If their billows excite an emotion, 
It is that they bear me from Thee. 



STANZAS TO AUGUSTA 33 

III 

Though the rock of my last Hope is shivered, 

And its fragments are sunk in the wave, 
Though I feel that my soul is delivered 

To Pain — it shall not be its slave. 
There is many a pang to pursue me : 

They may crush, but they shall not contemn — 
They may torture, but shall not subdue me — 

'T is of Thee that I think — not of them. 

IV 

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 

Though woman, thou didst not forsake, 
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 

Though slandered, thou never couldst shake, — 
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 

Though parted, it was not to fly, 
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me, 

Nor, mute, that the world might belie. 



Yet I blame not the World, nor despise it, 

Nor the war of the many with one ; 
If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 

'T was folly not sooner to shun : 
And if dearly that error hath cost me, 

And more than I once could foresee, 
I have found that, whatever it lost me, 

It could not deprive me of Thee. 

VI 

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, 
Thus much I at least may recall, 



34 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

It hath taught me that what I most cherished 

Deserved to be dearest of all : 
In the Desert a fountain is springing, 

In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
And a bird in the solitude singing, 

Which speaks to my spirit of Thee. 



PROMETHEUS 

Prometheus was written in July, 1816, at the Villa Diodati. Here 
began the most interesting of Byron's friendships, that with his great 
fellow-poet, Shelley. This poem, in subject at least, shows the 
influence of Shelley, who afterwards, in his Prometheics Unbound, 
produced a lyrical drama on the same theme, — a favorite one since 
the days of ^Eschylus. Byron's protest against tyranny is here voiced 
in a strain rather more elevated than was characteristic of him. The 
student will find it interesting to compare Byron's poem with the fine 
Prometheus of Longfellow. (For the story of Prometheus, see Gay- 
ley's Classic Myths (1903), pp. 44~46-) 

I 

TITAN ! to whose immortal eyes 
The sufferings of mortality, 
Seen in their sad reality, 
Were not as things that gods despise ; 
What was thy pity's recompense? 
A silent suffering, and intense ; 
The rock, the vulture, and the chain, 
All that the proud can feel of pain, 
The agony they do not show, 
The suffocating sense of woe, 

Which speaks but in its loneliness, 
And then is jealous lest the sky 
Should have a listener, nor will sigh 
Until its voice is echoless. 



PROMETHEUS 35 

II 

Titan ! to thee the strife was given 
Between the suffering and the will, 
Which torture where they cannot kill ; 

And the inexorable Heaven, 

And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 

The ruling principle of Hate, 

Which for its pleasure doth create 

The things it may annihilate, 

Refused thee even the boon to die : 

The wretched gift Eternity 

Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. 

All that the Thunderer wrung from thee 

Was but the Menace which flung back 

On him the torments of thy rack ; 

The fate thou didst so well foresee, 

But would not to appease him tell ; 

And in thy Silence was his Sentence, 

And in his Soul a vain repentance, 

And evil dread so ill dissembled 

That in his hand the lightnings trembled. 

Ill 

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, 

To render with thy precepts less 

The sum of human wretchedness, 
And strengthen Man with his own mind ; 
But baffled as thou wert from high, 
Still in thy patient energy, 
In the endurance, and repulse 

Of thine impenetrable Spirit, 
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, 

A mighty lesson we inherit : 



36 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Thou art a symbol and a sign 

To Mortals of their fate and force ; 
Like thee, Man is in part divine, 

A troubled stream from a pure source ; 
And Man in portions can foresee 

His own funereal destiny; 
His wretchedness, and his resistance, 
And his sad unallied existence : 
To which his Spirit may oppose 
Itself — an equal to all woes — 

And a firm will, and a deep sense, 
Which even in torture can descry 

Its own concentered recompense, 
Triumphant where it dares defy, 
And making Death a Victory. 



WHEN WE TWO PARTED 
(Written between 1 8 14 and 18 16) 



WHEN we two parted 
In silence and tears, 
Half broken-hearted 
To sever for years, 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 

Colder thy kiss ; 
Truly that hour foretold 
Sorrow to this. 

II 

The dew of the morning 
Sunk chill on my brow — 



WHEN WE TWO PARTED 37 

It felt like the warning 

Of what I feel now. 
Thy vows are all broken, 

And light is thy fame : 
I hear thy name spoken, 

And share in its shame. 

Ill 
They name thee before me, 

A knell to mine ear ; 
A shudder comes o'er me — 

Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee, 

Who knew thee too well : — 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 

Too deeply to tell. 

IV 

In secret we met — 

In silence I grieve, 
That thy heart could forget, 

Thy spirit deceive. 
If I should meet thee 

After long years, 
How should I greet thee ? — 

With silence and tears. 



38 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT 

(From Mail/red, Act III, Scene IV; written in Venice, April, 

1817) 

Scene IV. Interior of the tower 

Manfred alone 

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops 
Of the snow-shining mountains. — Beautiful ! 
I linger yet with Nature, for the Night 
Hath been to me a more familiar face 
Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 
Of dim and solitary loveliness, 
I learned the language of another world. 
I do remember me, that in my youth, 
When I was wandering, — upon such a night 
I stood within the Coliseum's wall, ic 

'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome ; 
The trees which grew along the broken arches 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber ; and 
More near from out the Caesar's palace came 
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 
Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 2c 

Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood 
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt, 
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 
A grove which springs through levelled battlements, 
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, 



TO THOMAS MOORE 39 

Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; — 

But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, 

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection, 

While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, 

Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. — 30 

And thou didst shine, thou rolling Moon, upon 

All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 

Which softened down the hoar austerity 

Of rugged desolation, and filled up, 

As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries ; 

Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 

And making that which was not — till the place 

Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 

With silent worship of the Great of old, — 

The dead, but sceptred, Sovereigns, who still rule 40 

Our spirits from their urns. 



TO THOMAS MOORE 

(Written July, 181 7) 



MY boat is on the shore, 
And my bark is on the sea ; 
But, before I go, Tom Moore, 
Here 's a double health to thee ! 

II 

Here 's a sigh to those who love me, 
And a smile to those who hate ; 

And, whatever sky 's above me, 
Here 's a heart for every fate. 



40 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

III 
Though the Ocean roar around me, 

Yet it still shall bear me on ; 
Though a desert should surround me, 

It hath springs that may be won. 

IV 
Were 't the last drop in the well, 

As I gasped upon the brink, 
Ere my fainting spirit fell, 

'Tis to thee that I would drink. 

V 
With that water, as this wine, 

The libation I would pour 
Should be — peace with thine and mine, 

And a health to thee, Tom Moore. 



SELECTIONS FROM CHILDE HAROLD 

CANTOS II AND III 

Childe Harold is a series of descriptive, reflective, and lyrical 
stanzas, strung together on a slender thread of narrative. It is divided 
into four cantos, and is written in the nine-line stanza of Spenser's 
Faerie Queene, — a measure that, in Byron's hands, becomes an instru- 
ment of many strings. 

The impressions made upon the poet by his tour through Portugal, 
Spain, Albania, and Greece are recorded in the first two cantos 
of Childe Harold, which, when published in March, 1 1812, inspired 
Byron's oft-quoted remark, " I awoke one morning and found myself 
famous." Among much that is trivial and commonplace, certain 
stanzas in Cantos I and II rise into greatness. 

But there is a vast gulf fixed between the first two and the last two 
cantos of Childe Harold. Cantos III and IV, published in 18 16 and 
1818, respectively, first showed the world the scope of Byron's genius. 
They form an imperishable contribution to literature. Their subject- 
matter is furnished by the scenery and historical associations of Bel- 
gium, the Rhine, Switzerland, and Italy. But Childe Harold is no mere 
versified notebook. Here Byron's passion for the grander aspects of 
nature — the mountains and the sea — finds its highest expression. 
The poem is even more than a series of brilliant scenic descriptions : 
it is, as the poet himself says, " a mark of respect for what is vener- 
able, and of feeling for what is glorious." Byron's sense of historic 
continuity and his vivid imagination bring the dead past to life again, 
with its art and literature, its great deeds and its mighty men, — " The 
glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome." 

GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION OF 1821 

(From Canto II) 

Though Greece, enslaved by the Turks and rent by domestic dis- 
cord, showed at this period little capacity for self-government, she 
yet regained her independence as the result of the revolution begun 
in 182 1. Some twelve years after writing the present stanzas Byron 
was to offer up his own life upon the altar of Grecian freedom. 

1 Nicol, Byron (English Men of Letters), gives February 29; but Leslie 
Stephen, article " Byron," Dictionary of National Biography, gives March ; 
and E. H. Coleridge, Poetical Works of Lord Byron (1 vol.), gives March 10. 

41 



42 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

II 

A NCIENT of days ! august Athena ! where, 
l\. Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul? 
Gone — glimmering through the dream of things that were : 
First in the race that led to Glory's goal, 
They won, and passed away — is this the whole? 
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour ! 
The Warrior's weapon and the Sophist's stole 
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, 
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. 

LXXIII 
Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed Worth ! 
Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! 
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, 
And long-accustomed bondage uncreate? 
Not such thy sons who whilome did await, 
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, 
In bleak Thermopylae's * sepulchral strait — 
Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 
Leap from Eurotas' 2 banks, and call thee from the tomb? 

LXXIV 
Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow 
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus 3 and his train, 
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now 
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain? 

1 Thermopylae : a narrow pass on the eastern coast, through which ran the only 
road from northern to southern Greece. Here, in 480 B.C., Leonidas, the Spartan, 
with three hundred Spartans and seven hundred Thespians, met the Persian army 
of Xerxes. Although the Greeks were slain to a man, " Thermopylae " has become 
a synonym for the most exalted patriotism. 

2 Eurotas : a river of Greece, on which Sparta was situated. 

3 Thrasybulus : an Athenian general and statesman who, in 403 B.C., by seiz- 
ing Phyle and the Piraeus, overthrew the Thirty Tyrants of Athens and restored 
the democracy. 



GREECE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION OF 1821 43 

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 

But every carle x can lord it o'er thy land ; 

Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, 

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, 

From birth till death enslaved — in word, in deed, unmanned. 

LXXVI 

Hereditary Bondsmen ! know ye not 
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? 
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? 
Will Gaul or Muscovite 2 redress ye ? No ! 
True — they may lay your proud despoilers low, 
But not for you will Freedom's Altars flame. 
Shades of the Helots ! 3 triumph o'er your foe ! 
Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; 
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame. 

LXXXVII 

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 
Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled, 
And still his honey'd wealth Hymettus 4 yields ; 
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 
The free-born wanderer of thy mountain air ; 
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, 
Still in his beam Mendeli's 5 marbles glare ; 
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. 

1 Carle : rustic, boor. 2 Gaul or Muscovite : Frenchman or Russian. 

3 Helots : a class of serfs among the ancient Spartans. They were owned by 
the state, were cruelly treated, and sometimes massacred. Now, says Byron, 
in the present degraded state of Greece the shades of the Helots can triumph 
over the descendants of their oppressors. 

4 Hymettus : the ancient name of a mountain southeast of Athens, celebrated 
for its honey. 

5 Mendeli : the modern name of Pentelicus, a mountain near Athens famous 
for its marble. 



44 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

LXXXVIII 
Where'er we tread 't is haunted, holy ground j 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of Wonder spreads around, 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon ; 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold 
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone : 
Age shakes Athena's tower, 1 but spares gray Marathon. 2 

THE EVE BEFORE WATERLOO 
(From Canto III) 

On the night of June 15, 1815, traditionally the "eve before 
Waterloo," the Duchess of Richmond gave a ball in Brussels, near 
which the English army was encamped. Wellington, though uncertain 
of Napoleon's movements, ordered his officers to attend the ball, in 
order to avert a panic among the townspeople. While " all went merry 
as a marriage bell" Napoleon approached the city. On the following 
day was fought the battle of Quatrebras ; two days later, Waterloo. 

XXI 

THERE was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's Capital had gathered then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry — and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell. 

1 Athena's tower : probably refers to the Parthenon at Athens. 

2 Marathon : a plain eighteen miles northeast of Athens, where, in 490 B.C., 
Miltiades, with eleven thousand Greeks, defeated a hundred thousand Persians, 
thus saving Europe from the "barbarians." 



THE EVE BEFORE WATERLOO 45 

XXII 

Did ye not hear it? — No — 'twas but the Wind, 

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 

On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; 

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet 

To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 

But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, 

As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; 

And nearer — clearer — deadlier than before ! 

Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! 

XXIV 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro — 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness — 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ! 

XXV 

And there was mounting in. hot haste — the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war — 
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the Morning Star ; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips — " The foe ! They come ! 
they come ! " 



46 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

THE RHINE 
(From Canto III) 



B 



L 

UT Thou, exulting and abounding river ! 



Making thy waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation so, 
Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know 
Earth paved like Heaven — and to seem such to me, 
Even now what wants thy stream ? — that it should Lethe 1 be. 

LIX 

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 
Thine is a scene alike where souls united, 
Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray ; 
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, 
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, 
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, 
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. 

LX 

Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! 
There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 
The mind is coloured by thy every hue ; 
And if reluctantly the eyes resign 

1 Lethe : in Greek mythology a river of the lower world, whose waters, when 
drunk by the souls, brought oblivion of all former existence. 



NIGHT AND STORM IN THE ALPS 47 

Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine ! 

'T is with the thankful glance of parting praise ; 

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine, 

But none unite, in one attaching maze, 

The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days, 

LXI 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 

Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, 

The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, 

The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, — 

The wild rocks shaped, as they had turrets been, 

In mockery of man's art ; and these withal 

A race of faces happy as the scene, 

Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, 

Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them fall. 



NIGHT AND STORM IN THE ALPS 

(From Canto III) 

LXXXV 
LEAR, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 



c 



With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 

LXXXVI 
It is the hush of night, and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 



48 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and, drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 

LXXXVII 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 

LXXXVII I 
Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven, 
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, — 't is to be forgiven, 
That in our aspirations to be great, 
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
A beauty and a mystery, and create 
In us such love and reverence from afar, 
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. 

LXXXIX 
All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep, 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 



NIGHT AND STORM IN THE ALPS 49 

All heaven and earth are still : From the high host 
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, 
All is concentred in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 

xc 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone ; 
A truth, which through our being then doth melt 
And purifies from self : it is a tone, 
The soul and source of music, which makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
Binding all things with beauty ; — 't would disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 

XCI 

Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 
The Spirit in whose honor shrines are weak, 
Upreared of human hands. Come, and compare 
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer ! 

XCI I 
The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh night, 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 



50 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

XCIII 

And this is in the night : — Most glorious night ! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
And now again 't is black, — and now, the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

XCIV 
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, 
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ! 
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed : - 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage : 

XCV 
Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand : 
For here, not one, but many, make their play, 
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around : of all the band, 



NIGHT AND STORM IN THE ALPS 51 

The brightest through these parted hills hath forked 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation worked, 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. 

XCVI 

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye ! 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
Of your departing voices, is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 
But where of ye, oh tempests ! is the goal ? 
Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 

XCVII 
Could I embody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word, 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 



CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV 



INTRODUCTION 

The Elemeiits of its Subject-M after 

The subject-matter of the fourth canto of Childe Harold contains three 
elements, sometimes separate and distinct, sometimes commingled. 
These elements may be designated as descriptive, reflective, and lyrical. 
The descriptive element occupies itself directly with description of the 
cities, the men, the events, the scenes of nature, and the works of art, 
which the poet contemplates in fact or in imagination. This element 
is closely related to, indeed usually flows into, what may be called the 
reflective element, which consists in the poet's reflections upon what 
he sees ; such reflective stanzas form what is often called " didactic " 
poetry. Finally, the lyrical element directly expresses the poet's own 
emotions. This element is so closely connected with the reflective as 
sometimes to be practically identical with it. For instance, the reflect- 
ive stanzas on Love (cxx-cxxvn) are at least partly lyrical, and would 
perhaps be called wholly so if taken out of their context and presented 
as a separate poem. But the term " lyrical " here means a direct revela- 
tion of the poet's own emotions, such as we find in stanzas cxxx- 
cxxxviii. Of this strictly lyrical and purely subjective element there is 
enough in the poem to justify a separate classification. 

Unity of the Poem 

With all its variety of subject-matter, Childe Harold has a unity of 
its own. This results from several circumstances. First, Byron's atti- 
tude towards his subject is the same throughout — consistent reverence 
for great men, great deeds, and great works of nature and of art. Again, 
the subject-matter, as far as it deals with externals, is all drawn from 
Italy. Finally, the poem really has a plan : it purports to be the record 
of a journey from Venice southward to Rome, with many side trips in 
the shape of lyrical and reflective digressions. 

The poet's wanderings are easily followed. The three centers of in- 
terest are Venice, Florence, and Rome. Starting from Venice the poet 
proceeds in a general southwesterly direction toward Rome, his goal. 
On the way he stops on the banks of the river Brenta to admire the 
sunset. At the village of Arqua, a few miles farther south, he visits the 

5 2 



CHILDE HAROLD 53 

tomb of Petrarch. Next he proceeds fifty miles due south to Ferrara, 
the home of Tasso and Ariosto ; then southwest to Florence. Having 
left Florence he finds on his way Lake Trasimeno ; farther south, the 
river Clitumnus ; still farther on, the Marble Cascade, near Terni. He 
remembers Horace, as he looks upon Mount Soracte, northeast of the 
Eternal City. At last in Rome he pauses long over the vast riches 
the city has to offer him. Leaving Rome he seeks from the summit of 
the Alban mountains a view of the object he loves best — the sea. With 
the magnificent stanzas on the ocean the poem ends. 

The Meaning and the Value of the Poem 

Childe Harold, though it does indeed describe places, works of art, 
scenes from nature, and great men and great events of ancient and 
modern Italy, is not at all a guidebook. For two reasons : first, it was 
not written to order ; Byron fails to mention a host of things he must 
have seen and might well have included in his poem. Childe Ha?vld is 
thus a very incomplete picture of Italy — even of Byron's own imagi- 
nary journey from Venice to Rome. The poet describes only what 
made to him a special appeal, what most impressed his imagination and 
aroused his emotions. Fortunately, all that Byron describes is great 
and memorable in itself and has taken a strong and permanent hold on 
the imagination of mankind. It is strange, however, that he names not 
one single painter (Michelangelo is named as sculptor and architect), 
though Italy has produced many of the greatest, and he knew very 
well their names ; that he mentions not one single picture, though he 
must have wandered through the most superb picture galleries of the 
world, at Venice, Florence, and Rome. He selects his material simply 
according to the demands of his own nature. Again, and as a result of 
this fact, Childe Harold is not merely what is called a descriptive poem, 
dealing only with external objects as they must appear to any casual 
observer. As such the poem would be little more than versified prose. 
Childe Harold is in truth highly subjective, that is, it presents external 
objects as seen through the medium of Byron's own individuality, with 
his very eyes — colored, glorified, and interpreted by the sensibility and 
imagination of a great poet. The poem thus becomes a consistent 
and splendid work of art and the revelation of a great personality. 

OUTLINE 

Venice: i-xix (i-iv, descriptive and reflective ; v-x, lyrical; xi-xix, 

descriptive and reflective). 
Lyrical Stanzas : xx-xxiv (suffering, and its effect upon the soul). 
Italy: xxv-xxvi (its beauty and its ruins; reflective). 



54 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Sunset on the Brenta: xxvii-xxix (descriptive). 
Arqua and Petrarch: xxx-xxxiv (descriptive and reflective). 
Ferrara and Tasso : xxxv-xxxix (descriptive and reflective). 
Dante and Ariosto : xl-xli (descriptive). 

Italy: xlii-xlvii (her fatal beauty, her decay, her wrongs. Reflective). 
Florence: xlviii-lxi (the city; the Venus de' Medici; Santa Croce 
and its dead ; Michelangelo and others ; Dante and others. Descrip- 
tive and reflective). 
Thrasimene: lxii-lxv (the place and the battle. Descriptive). 
Clitumnus: lxvi-lxviii (descriptive). 
The Marble Cascade : lxix-lxxii (descriptive). 
The Apennines and Soracte: lxxiii-lxxvii (descriptive and re- 
flective). 
Rome: lxxviii-clxiii (descriptive, reflective, lyrical). 

The city and its decay : Lxxviii-Lxxxn. 

Sylla and Cromwell: lxxxiii-lxxxvi. 

Statues of Pompey and the Wolf: lxxxvii-lxxxviii. 

Napoleon and Caesar : lxxxix-xcii. 

Reflections upon human life and its futility; tyranny and freedom : 

XCIII-XCVHI. 

Tomb of Cecilia Metella: xcix-cin. 

Lyrical stanzas : civ-cvi (the poet's sense of isolation and his 
despair). 

The Palatine Mount : cvii-cix. 

The Forum and surrounding objects: cx-cxiv. 

Egeria and her fountain : cxv-cxix. 

Lyrical stanzas : cxx-cxxvn (love, the ideal impossible of attain- 
ment). 

The Coliseum : cxxvm-cxxix. 

Lyrical stanzas: cxxx-cxxxvn (the poet's wrongs). 

The Coliseum : CXXXVIII-CXLV. 

The Pantheon : cxlvi-cxlvii. 

Legend of the Roman Daughter: cxlviii-cli. 

Hadrian's Mausoleum : clii. 

St. Peter's Church : cliii-clix. 

Statues in the Vatican: CLX-CLXIII. 
Lyrical Stanzas : clxiv-CLXVI (the Pilgrim and his passing). 
Reflective (Elegiac) Stanzas : clxvii-clxxii (the death of Princess 

Charlotte Augusta). 
View from the Alban Mount: clxxiii-clxxiv (descriptive, re- 
flective). 
The Ocean: clxxv-clxxxiv (descriptive, reflective, lyrical). 
Conclusion : clxxxy-clxxxvi. 



CHILDE HAROLD 55 

I 

I STOOD in Venice, 1 on the " Bridge of Sighs " ; 2 
A palace and a prison on each hand : 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : 
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Looked to the winged Lion's 3 marble piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles I 

II 
She looks a sea Cybele, 4 fresh from Ocean, 
Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
At airy distance, with majestic motion, 
A ruler of the waters and their powers : 
And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 

1 Venice : This city has shared with Florence the especial favor of great Eng- 
lish poets. Compare Byron's more elaborate " Ode on Venice," beginning, 

" Oh, Venice ! Venice ! when thy marble walls 
Are level with the waters, there shall be 
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, 
A loud lament along the sleeping sea ! " 

2 " Bridge of Sighs " : so called from the fact that through its passages pris- 
oners were led for trial and judgment. It was built in 1597 over the Rio (canal) 
della Paglia, and connects the Doge's palace with the state prisons. 

3 The winged Lion's : St Mark, the patron saint of Venice, has the lion for 
his symbol in Christian art, and the " Lion of St. Mark " thus became the stand- 
ard of the Republic. Its image in bronze is one of the sights of the city. 

4 A sea Cybele : Cybele, originally an Asiatic goddess, was later identified 
with the Greek Rhea, mother of the gods. The source of social progress and 
civilization, she was also regarded as the founder of towns and cities, and for 
this reason is represented in art as crowned with a diadem of towers. She trav- 
eled riding on a lion or in a chariot drawn by lions. Byron's reference to Venice 
as a " sea Cybele " is hence peculiarly appropriate. Venice was a mother of 
civilization and the arts, wore a " tiara of proud towers," and had for her standard 
the " winged Lion." 



56 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers : 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. 

Ill 
In Venice Tasso's echoes 1 are no more, 
And silent rows the songless Gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear : 
Those days are gone — but Beauty still is here. 
States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die, 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The Revel 2 of the earth — the Masque 2 of Italy! 

IV 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 

Her name in story, and her long array 

Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 

Above the dogeless city's vanished sway ; 

Ours is a trophy which will not decay 

With the Rialto 3 ; Shylock and the Moor, 4 

1 Tasso's echoes : in the days when Venice was an independent state it is 
said that a favorite song of the gondoliers consisted of selections from Tasso's 
famous epic poem, Jencsalem Delivered, translated from the Tuscan into the 
Venetian dialect. For Tasso, see note 4, p. 69. 

2 Revel; Masque: a "revel" in old times was what the name implies, — a 
boisterous entertainment, full of jollity and noisy sport. " Masque " here perhaps 
stands for the carnivals for which Venice was famous, since masques were worn 
at these festivals. The word may however refer to that species of dramatic 
entertainment known as the " Masque," — a mixture of pageant, song, and dance, 
which originated in Italy. 

3 Rialto : this word comes from " rivo alto " (deep stream), and at first desig- 
nated the group of islands on the left of the Grand Canal, which formed the site 
of the original city. But Byron incorrectly uses the word for the Ponte di Rialto 
(Bridge of the Rialto), which spans the Grand Canal and forms one of the most 
famous landmarks of Venice. 

4 Shylock and the Moor : Shylock is the principal character of Shakespeare's 
Merchant of Venice ; the Moor is Shakespeare's Othello. The scenes of both 



CHILDE HAROLD 57 

And Pierre, 1 cannot be swept or worn away — 
The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

V 

The Beings of the Mind are not of clay : 
Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brighter ray 
And more beloved existence : that which Fate 
Prohibits to dull life in this our state 
Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied, 
First exiles, then replaces, what we hate ; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, 
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 

VI 
Such is the refuge of our youth and age — 
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy : 
And this wan feeling peoples many a page — 
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye. 
Yet there are things whose strong reality 
Outshines our fairy-land ; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky, 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skillful to diffuse : 

VII 

I saw or dreamed of such, — but let them go, — 
They came like Truth — and disappeared like dreams ; 
And whatsoe'er they were — are now but so : 
I could replace them if I would ; still teems 

plays are laid in part in Venice. Byron here names the two greatest of all imagi- 
nary characters connected with the city. 

1 Pierre : the hero of a famous English tragedy, Venice Preserved, by Thomas 
Otway (1652-1685). 



58 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments found ; 
Let these too go — for waking Reason deems 
Such overweening phantasies unsound, 
And other voices speak, and other sights surround. 

VIII 

I 've taught me other tongues — and in strange eyes 
Have made me not a stranger ; to the mind 
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise ; 
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 
A country with — ay, or without — mankind ; 
Yet was I born where men are proud to be, — 
Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 
The inviolate Island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

IX 

Perhaps I loved it well ; and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
My Spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remembered in my line 
With my land's language : if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 

X 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honored by the Nations — let it be — 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — 



CHILDE HAROLD 59 

" Sparta 1 hath many a worthier son than he." 
Meantime I seek no sympathies — nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me, — and I bleed : 
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. 

XI 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord, 2 
And annual marriage now no more renewed — 
The Bucentaur 3 lies rotting unrestored, 
Neglected garment of her widowhood ! 
St. Mark yet sees his Lion 4 where he stood 
Stand, but in mockery of his withered power, 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 5 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a Queen with an unequalled dower. 

XII 
The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian 6 reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor 6 knelt ; 

1 Sparta . . . son than he : this was the answer given by the mother of Brasidas, 
the Spartan general (d. 422 B.C.), to strangers who praised the memory of her son. 

2 Her Lord : Venice has been called " the Bride of the Adriatic." Byron has 
confused the gender : the Adriatic (in Latin, Hadria, the Adriatic Sea, is mascu- 
line) is the bridegroom, Venice the bride. 

3 Bucentaur: the state barge of Venice, in which, on Ascension Day, the 
Doge used to wed the Adriatic by dropping a ring into it. Three ships of this 
name were built, the last of which was destroyed by the French in 1797. The 
ship perhaps took its name from the figure of a " bucentaur " (head of a man and 
body of a bull) in its bow. 

4 His Lion : see note 3, p. 55. 

5 An Emperor sued: Frederick Barbarossa ("the Suabian"), emperor of 
Germany, knelt as a suitor, July 24, 1177, in the plaza before the church of St. 
Mark. However, it was not to the Venetians, but to Pope Alexander III, that he 
sued ; and he knelt only as a son of the Church, not as a vanquished enemy. 
The treaty entered into on this occasion concluded a long and bloody war 
between Germany and Italy. 

6 The Austrian; An Emperor: Napoleon conquered Venice in 1797, and in 
the same year ceded it to the Austrians, who held the city intermittently until 



60 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities ; nations melt 
From Power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 
The sunshine for a while, and downward go 
Like lauwine 1 loosened from the mountain's belt ; 
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! 2 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. 

XIII 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 3 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 
But is not Doria's menace 4 come to pass? 
Are they not bridled 7 — Venice, lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 
Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! 
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun, 
Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign foes, 
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 

1866. The reader cannot fail to be struck with Byron's frequent references to 
Napoleon ; see also stanzas lxxxix-xcii, xcvn ; and note 3, p. 92. 

1 Lauwine (German, latvine) : avalanche. 

2 Blind old Dandolo: Enrico Dandolo was elected doge of Venice in 1192, 
at the age of eighty-five, and commanded the Venetians at the taking of Con- 
stantinople in 1204. He was one of the most famous of Venetian rulers and 
conquerors. 

" Oh, for an hour of Dundee " was the exclamation of a Highland chieftain 
at the indecisive battle of Sheriff-muir, in 1715, between the Scotch Royalists 
and the Jacobite Highlanders. " Dundee " was John Graham of Claverhouse, 
Viscount of Dundee, who won the battle of Killicrankie (16S9). He is the chief 
figure in Scott's Old Mortality. 

3 Steeds of brass: the four bronze "Horses of St. Mark," which stand 
before the church of St. Mark, were, according to history or legend, brought 
by the emperor Augustus from Alexandria ; were next taken by Constantine 
to Constantinople; were again transferred, by Dandolo, to Venice, in 1204; 
were captured by Napoleon in 1797, and taken to Paris ; but were finally restored 
to the Venetians in 181 5. The later events are of course authentic history. 

4 Doria's menace : according to tradition the Genoese admiral, Pietro Doria, 
in 1379, threatened the Venetians that he would " put a rein on those unbridled 
horses of yours." He failed to do this, however, and the horses remained un- 
bridled until the conquest by Napoleon. 



CHILDE HAROLD 6l 



XIV 



In youth She was all glory, — a new Tyre, 1 — 
Her very by-word sprung from victory, 
The "Planter of the Lion," 2 which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea ; 
Though making many slaves, Herself still free, 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; 3 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! 4 Vouch it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's 5 fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV 

Statues of glass — all shivered — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls, 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 



1 Tyre : the chief city of Phoenicia, whose very name was the synonym of 
wealth and luxury. Under Hiram, the contemporary and friend of Solomon, 
it became the great commercial city of the Mediterranean (see Ezekiel xxvi). 

2 Planter of the Lion : Byron has in mind the name sometimes given to Vene- 
tians — " Pantaloni." The poet's etymology is fanciful, since the word is not con- 
nected with the standard of the Republic (the "winged lion"), but is probably 
derived from St. Pantaleon, a favorite among the Venetians. 

3 Ottomite: for Ottoman; see Othello, Act II, sc. iii, 1. 171. From the 
fourteenth to the nineteenth century the Turks continually menaced Europe. 

4 Troy's rival, Candia: Candia (Crete) was lost by the Venetians to the 
Turks in 1669, after a defense of twenty-five years. She is " Troy's rival," as the 
siege of Troy lasted ten years. 

5 Lepanto : one of the great sea fights of history, fought off Lepanto, Greece, 
on October 7, 1571, between the Italian and Spanish fleets under Don John 
of Austria, and the Turks. The loss was 8000 Christians and 30,000 Turks. 



62 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XVI 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war, 
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 1 
Her voice their only ransom from afar : 
See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 
Of the o'ermastered victor stops — the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, 
And bids him thank the Bard 2 for freedom and his strains. 

XVII 

Thus, Venice ! if no stronger claim were thine, 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, 
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion ! 3 to thee : the Ocean Queen 3 should not 
Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIII 
I loved her from my boyhood — she to me 
Was as a fairy city of the heart, 

1 Attic Muse : Plutarch [Life of Nicias) says that when the Athenians were 
defeated at Syracuse (Sicily) in 413 B.C., made prisoners, and sold as slaves, 
some of them won hospitality and protection by reciting passages from the 
dramas of Euripides (the "Attic Muse"), which were very popular throughout 
the island (see Grote's History of Greece, Vol. VII, pp. 178-179, ed. 1888). 
This pretty story is admirably used as the basis of Browning's Balanstioii s 
Adventure. 

2 Bard : Euripides. 

3 Albion ; Ocean Queen : " Albion " (from Latin albus, white) is a name 
given to England on account of her white cliffs of Dover, first of her region 
to be seen by the voyager across the Channel. She is still the " Ocean Queen," 
since her navies, military and merchant, dominate the seas. 



CHILDE HAROLD 63 

Rising like water-columns from the sea — 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; 
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, 1 
Had stamped her image in me, and even so, 
Although I found her thus, we did not part — 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX 

I can repeople with the past — and of 
The present there is still for eye and thought, 
And meditation chastened down, enough ; 
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought , 
And of the happiest moments which were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice ! have their colors caught : 
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, 
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 

XX 
But, from their nature, will the Tannen 2 grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks, 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below 
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 
Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, 
And grew a giant tree ; — the Mind may grow the same. 

1 Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art : for Otway and Shakespeare, 
see note 1, p. 57 ; and note 4, p. 56. The scene of The Mysteries of Udolpho, 
one of the novels of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1 764-1 823), is laid in part in Venice, 
as is that of The Ghost-Seer or Armenian, an unfinished novel by Schiller (1759— 
1805), the great German poet and dramatist. 

2 Tannen (plural of German tannc) : a species of fir tree found throughout 
the mountainous region of central Europe. 



64 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XXI 

Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode 
In bare and desolated bosoms : mute 
The camel labors with the heaviest load, 
And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestowed 
In vain should such example be ; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 

XXII 

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed, 
Even by the sufferer ; and, in each event, 
Ends : — Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed, 
Return to whence they came — with like intent, 
And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent, 
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, 
And perish with the reed on which they leant ; 
Some seek devotion — toil — war — good or crime, 
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb. 

XXIII 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside forever : it may be a sound — 
A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring — 
A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound 



CHILDE HAROLD 65 

XXIV 
And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, 
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface 
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, 
Which out of things familiar, undesigned, 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The Spectres whom no exorcism can bind — 
The cold — the changed — perchance the dead, anew — 
The mourned, the loved, the lost — too many ! yet how few ! 

XXV 

But my Soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 
Fallen states and buried greatness, o'er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand ; 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free — 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea. 

XXVI 1 
The Commonwealth of Kings — the Men of Rome ! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy ! 
Thou art the Garden of the World, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 

1 Stanza XXVI: with this should be read the following, from Canto III : 

" Italia ! too, Italia ! looking on thee, 
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, 
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, 
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages 
Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; 
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still 
The fount at which the panting mind assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, 
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill." 



66 . SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful — thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck, a glory ; and thy ruin, graced 
With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced. 

XXVII 
The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; 1 Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be, — 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! 

XXVIII 
A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill, 2 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order : — gently flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta, 3 where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose, 
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows, 

1 Friuli's mountains : Friuli is a district north of the Adriatic Sea. Stanzas 
xxvn, xxvin, and xxix are, Byron avers, a "literal and hardly sufficient de- 
lineation of an August evening, as contemplated in one of many rides along 
the banks of the Brenta, near La Mira." At La Mira, near Venice, the poet spent 
the summers of 1817 and 1818. 

2 Rhaetian hill : probably the " Rhaetian Alps," a chain of the Alps which 
extends down into Rhaetia, the ancient name of a Roman province in northern 
Italy. 

3 Brenta: a river in northeastern Italy, which rises in the Tyrol and flows 
into the Gulf of Venice, south of the city. 



CHILDE HAROLD 67 

XXIX 

Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, 
Comes down upon the waters ! all its hues, 
From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
Their magical variety diffuse ; 
And now they change — a paler Shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting Day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new color as it gasps away — 
The last still loveliest, till — 't is gone — and all is gray. 

XXX 

There is a tomb in Arqua ; * — reared in air, 
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover : 2 here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 
The Pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes ; 
Watering the tree which bears his Lady's name 
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to Fame. 



1 Arqua : a village thirteen miles southwest of Padua and about thirty miles 
southwest of Venice. Here Petrarch died and is buried. 

2 Laura's lover: Petrarch (1304-1374), the great poet and scholar, one of 
the chief names in Italian literature. At Vaucluse, near Avignon, in France, he 
bought a little house, where he lived in seclusion and did most of his best work ; 
hence he has been called "the hermit of Vaucluse." In 1340 he was summoned 
on the same day to both Rome and Paris to be crowned poet laureate ; but he 
preferred Rome, and there received the laurel crown in 134 1. He was the friend 
of Boccaccio, and helped largely to bring about the Revival of Learning in Italy. 
Many of his sonnets are addressed to a certain " Laura," who has never been 
positively identified, though innumerable pages have been written on the subject. 
If " Laura " was indeed Madame de Sale, of Avignon, there is no reason to sup- 
pose that she ever returned the poet's devotion ; indeed, it is highly probable 
that the Laura of the sonnets was more an ideal than a real person. Yet the 
phrase " Petrarch and Laura " has become proverbial. 



68 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XXXI 

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died ; 
The mountain-village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years ; and 't is their pride — 
An honest pride — and let it be their praise, 
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 
His mansion and his sepulchre — both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane. 

XXXII 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 
Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 
Which shows a distant prospect far away 
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed, 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday. 

XXXIII 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by, 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
'T is Solitude should teach us how to die ; 
It hath no flatterers — Vanity can give 
No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive 



CHILDE HAROLD 69 

XXXIV 

Or, it may be, with Demons, who impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms — such as were 
Of moody texture from their earliest day, 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; 
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, 
The tomb a hell, — and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV 
Ferrara ! * in thy wide and grass-grown streets, 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude, 
There seems as 't were a curse upon the seats 
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 
Of Este,' 2 which for many an age made good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or Tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impelled, of those who wore 
The wreath 3 which Dante's brow alone had worn before. 

XXXVI 
And Tasso 4 is their glory and their shame — 
Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell ! 

1 Ferrara : a city of Italy about fifty-five miles southwest of Venice, in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries famous as an artistic and literary center. It was 
ruled by the great family of Este, and was the home of both Ariosto and Tasso. 

2 Este : one of the oldest and most renowned of the princely houses of Italy, 
ruling over Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, and famous as patrons of art and liter- 
ature. The family became extinct in 1803. 

3 Those who wore the wreath : the great poets Ariosto and Tasso, who were 
successors by right of genius to Dante's wreath of laurel, and who were patronized 
by the house of Este. 

4 Tasso: Torquato Tasso, one of the most celebrated of Italian poets, was 
born in Sorrento, Italy, in 1544, and died in Rome in 1595. He led a varied and 
eventful life, and finally went to Ferrara, where Duke Alfonso loaded him with 



70 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame, 
And where Alfonso * bade his poet dwell : 
The miserable despot could not quell 
The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end 
Scattered the clouds away — and on that name attend 

XXXVII 

The tears and praises of all time ; while thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing — but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn : 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born, 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn. 

XXXVIII 

Thou / formed to eat, and be despised, and die, 
Even as the beasts that perish — save that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty : 
He f with a glory round his furrowed brow, 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now, 

favors. After an attack of fever, in 1574, he became subject to strange delusions 
and fits of melancholy. In time his disorder became so violent that the duke 
was forced to place him in an insane asylum, where he remained for seven years. 
Though he lived to be honored by his countrymen, the latter part of his life was 
unhappy. His Jerusalem Delivered is one of the great epic poems of the world. 
Byron's stanzas on Tasso are based on the idea that the poet was imprisoned by 
Alfonso on account of his love for Leonora d'Este, the duke's sister, — a story 
that forms the basis of Goethe's drama Torquato Tasso and Byron's Lament of 
Tasso, Though this was not the case, there is little doubt that Tasso suffered 
some injustice and mistreatment. 
1 Alfonso : see preceding note. 



CHILDE HAROLD ji 

In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, 1 
And Boileau, 2 whose rash envy could allow 
No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire ! 

XXXIX 
Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 'twas his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 
Aimed with her poisoned arrows — but to miss. 
Oh, Victor unsurpassed in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 
Compose a mind like thine ? though all in one 
Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a sun. 

XL 
Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : 3 first rose 
The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine ; 4 

1 Cruscan quire : the Accademia della Crusca (the Academy of the Bran) was 
founded in Florence in 1582, to refine the Italian language and literature. It did 
not favor Tasso's work. 

2 Boileau : a French poet and critic (1636-17 11), who, in one of his satires, 
contrasts le clinquant du Tasse (the tinsel of Tasso) with the pure gold of 
Virgil. The " creaking lyre " probably refers to the French Alexandrine verse, 
which seems to us a rather monotonous meter, though in it many great French 
masterpieces are written. Boileau used it exclusively. 

3 The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : Dante and Ariosto (see the two notes 
following). 

4 The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine : Dante (1265-1321), the greatest of 
Italian poets, wrote the Divine Comedy. Dante was a Florentine, hence a "Tus- 
can" ; and was, like Milton, both poet and patriot. His life was stormy and 
eventful, and he died an unhappy exile from his native city, which treated him 
with ingratitude, but which afterwards begged for his body and came to regard 
his fame as her proudest possession. Dante is the " Bard of Hell," since the 
Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, is a picture of hell. Byron wrote a 
long poem called The Prophecy of Dante, but it does not rank high among 
his works. 



72 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Then, not unequal to the Florentine, 
The southern Scott, 1 the minstrel who called forth 
A new creation with his magic line, 
And, like the Ariosto of the North, 1 
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 

XLI 
The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 2 
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves ; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust, 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 3 
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies 4 below 
Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 

XLII5 
Italia ! oh, Italia ! thou who hast 
The fatal gift of beauty, which became 

1 The southern Scott; the Ariosto of the North: Ariosto (1474-1533), the 
" Bard of Chivalry," one of the four most celebrated of Italian poets, wrote the 
Orlando Furioso, a poem of love and chivalry ; and as a poet of love and chivalry 
he may perhaps be called the " southern Scott," but here the likeness ends. The 
" Ariosto of the North " is, of course, Sir Walter himself. Byron is perhaps 
thinking of Scott's Marmion, which is indeed a poem of love and chivalry, but 
very different from the work of Ariosto. 

2 Ariosto's bust : the body of Ariosto was at first entombed in the Benedic- 
tine church of Ferrara. The bust that surmounted the tomb was once struck by 
lightning, which melted the iron crown of laurel leaves. 

3 The tree no bolt of thunder cleaves : the Roman superstition was that the 
laurel tree was never struck by lightning. 

4 The lightning sanctifies : the Romans, as worshipers of Jupiter, the 
thunder god, held sacred certain objects struck by lightning. 

5 Stanzas XLII and XLIII : these are, with the exception of a line or two, 
a translation of a famous sonnet by the Italian poet Filicaja. From the very 
beginning of her history Italy has been the scene of almost perpetual conflict. 
Since Byron wrote, however, the united and prosperous Italy he dreamed of and 
worked for has become a reality in the modem kingdom of Italy ; and the cities 



CHILDE HAROLD 73 

A funeral dower of present woes and past — 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 
Oh, God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness 
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press 
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress ; 

XLIII 

Then might'st thou more appall ; or, less desired, 
Be homely and be peaceful, iindeplored 
For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, 
Would not be seen the armed torrents * poured 
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde 
Of many-nationed spoilers * from the Po 
Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword l 
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe. 

XLIV 

Wandering in youth, 2 I traced the path of him, 
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, 

he loved and sung about so nobly — Venice, Florence, and Rome — all are 
members of one enlightened government, and again, after ages, are enjoying 
both prosperity and peace. 

1 The armed torrents : this might refer to Hannibal's passage through the 
Alps into Italy (218 B.C.) ; to Charles VI IPs invasion, in 1494 a.d.; or to other 
incursions ; but more probably it refers to the then recent invasion by Napoleon. 
The " many-nationed spoilers " are chiefly the French and the Austrians : the 
French conquered, but gave northern Italy to Austria. " From the Po " (1. 6) 
is an adverbial phrase modifying " quaff." " The stranger's sword " is probably 
Napoleon's, who had overrun Italy and held her against the nations of the 
north ; or it may be the sword of the Austrian. 

2 Wandering in youth : his trip to Asia Minor, Greece, and Albania, in 
1809-1811, which furnished material for the first two cantos of Childe Harold. 
For another allusion to this tour, see stanzas clxxv and clxxvi. 



74 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

The friend of Tully: 1 as my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
^Egina lay — Piraeus on the right, 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin — even as he had seen the desolate sight ; 

XLV 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared 
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, 
Which only make more mourned and more endeared 
The few last rays of their far-scattered light, 
And the crushed relics of their vanished might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, 
These sepulchres of cities, which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 

XLVI 

That page is now before me, and on mine 
His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perished states he mourned in their decline, 
And I in desolation : all that was 
Of then destruction, is ; and now, alas ! 
Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, 
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form, 
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. 

1 The friend of Tully : Tully, " Rome's least mortal mind," is Marcus Tullius 
Cicero (106-43 B.C.), the greatest of Roman orators and prose writers. His friend 
was Servius Sulpicius, who wrote to Cicero a description of his voyage past the 
coast of Greece, where he saw, even then in ruins, the places mentioned by Byron 
in stanza xliv (see also stanza clxxiv). 



CHILDE HAROLD 75 

XLVII 

Yet, Italy ! through every other land 

Thy wrongs should ring — and shall — from side to side ; 
Mother of Arts ! as once of Arms ; thy hand 
Was then our Guardian, and is still our Guide ; 
Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! l 
Europe, repentant of her parricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 

XLVIII 

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, 
Where the Etrurian Athens 2 claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls : 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life, with her redundant horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. 

1 The keys of heaven : it was Rome rather than Italy who was " the parent 
of our religion," and who, as the seat of the Popes, successors to St. Peter, held 
the "keys of heaven" (see Matthew xvi, 19). 

2 The Etrurian Athens : Florence, often called the " Modern Athens," is in 
the province known to the ancient Romans as Etruria (now Tuscany), and is 
built on both sides of the river Arno. Its prosperity first arose from its commerce 
and great banking institutions — " modern luxury of Commerce born." Its mer- 
chants were princes, the wealthiest and most powerful of whom, the Medici, be- 
came the leaders of the city. This great family, one of the most remarkable known 
to history, patronized all the arts and sciences to an extent never known before. 
Under the patronage of the Medici, Florence, during the Age of the Renaissance 
(about 1400-15 50), produced numberless men of science, scholars, architects, 
painters, and poets. Around Lorenzo de' Medici, the " Magnificent," gathered 
Machiavelli (see note 4, p. 78), Michelangelo (see note 1, p. 78), Politian, the 
scholar, Ghirlandajo, the painter, and a host of other men of genius. Florence 
is still one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world. A roll of the 
great men associated with her name reads like a history of civilization. 



?6 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XLIX 
There, too, the Goddess * loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty ; we inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail ; 
And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a Soul could mould: 

L 
We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives, and would not depart. 
Away ! — there need no words, nor terms precise, 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart, 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 
Blood — pulse — and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's 2 prize. 

LI 
Appearedst thou not to Paris in this guise ? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? 3 or, 
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War ? 3 

1 The Goddess : the famous statue" known as the Venus de Medici, which 
stands in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. 

2 The Dardan Shepherd : according to the Greek myth, Paris, son of Priam, 
king of Troy, became a shepherd on Mt. Ida (see note 2, p. 86). He is here 
called the " Dardan ? ' shepherd, since Troy was founded by Dardanus. Paris, 
called in as judge, awarded the prize of beauty to Venus in preference to Juno 
and Minerva. This was the indirect cause of the Trojan War. 

3 Anchises ; Lord of War : Anchises was a beautiful youth beloved of Venus, 
and the father of ^Eneas, the hero of Virgil's sEncid. The " Lord of War " is 
Mars, the husband of Venus. 



CHILDE HAROLD JJ 

And gazing in thy face as toward a star, 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn, 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! while thy lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they burn, 
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn ! 

LI I 

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love — 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express, or to improve — 
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 
Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight 
Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create, 
From what has been, or might be, things which grow 
Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. 

LIII 

I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands, 
The Artist and his Ape, to teach and tell 
How well his connoisseurship understands 
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell : 
Let these describe the undescribable : 
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 
Wherein that image shall for ever dwell — 
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 

LIV 

In Santa Croce's x holy precincts lie 

Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 

Even in itself an immortality, 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 

1 Santa Croce : the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Here are buried 
Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Alfieri,"and Galileo. 



78 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : — here repose 
Angelo's, 1 Alfieri's 2 bones, and his, 
The starry Galileo, 3 with his woes ; 
Here Machiavelli's 4 earth returned to whence it rose. 

LV 
These are four minds, which, like the elements, 
Might furnish forth creation : — Italy ! 
Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny 
And hath denied, to every other sky, 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity, 
Which gilds it with reyivifying ray ; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova 5 is to-day. 

LVI 
But where repose the all Etruscan three 6 — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, 

1 Angelo : Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), perhaps the greatest artistic 
genius of all time, was preeminent as sculptor, architect, and painter, and is also 
numbered among the Italian poets. His greatest piece of architecture is the 
dome of St. Peter's Church in Rome (see note 2, p. 117) ; his greatest painting, 
the " Last Judgment," in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, Rome ; and among 
his finest statues are the "Moses" and the " David." His genius was titanic, 
akin to that of Beethoven in music and Shakespeare in poetry. He began his 
career in Florence under the patronage of the Medici. 

2 Alfieri : Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), the most celebrated of Italian tragic 
dramatists. Saul is perhaps his best play. 

3 Galileo: Galileo (1564-1642), the most famous of all astronomers. Milton 
met Galileo in Italy, and alludes to him in Paradise Lost, Book I, 1. 288 ; III, 
590; and V, 262. 

4 Machiavelli : Niccolb Machiavelli (1469-1527), the great Italian historian 
and philosophic statesman. His most famous work is The Prince, a treatise on 
government, but his History of Florence is also a classic. He belonged to Lorenzo 
de' Medici's circle at Florence. 

5 Canova : Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the most celebrated of modern Italian 
sculptors. 

6 The all Etruscan three : Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio (see note follow- 
ing) were all born in Tuscany. 



CHILDE HAROLD 79 

The Bard of Prose, 1 creative spirit ! he 
Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguished from our common clay 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? 

Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust ? 
LVII 
Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, 2 
Like Scipio, 3 buried by the upbraiding shore : 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 
With the remorse of ages ; and the crown 4 
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown — 

His life, his fame — his grave, though rifled — not thine own. 

LVIII 
Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed 
His dust, — and lies it not her Great among, 

1 The Bard of Prose : Boccaccio (1313— 1375), the creator of Italian prose, and 
one of the greatest prose writers of the world, was born at Certaldo, but spent 
most of his life in Florence. He is one of the best of story-tellers ; his collection 
of one hundred tales, known as the Decameron, has passed into every literature. 
Boccaccio was also a great scholar, was the friend of Petrarch, and did much to 
bring about the Revival of Learning. He was buried in the church of the Canonica 
at Certaldo, near Florence ; but in 1783 his sepulcher was removed on the plea that 
a recent edict forbidding burial in churches applied also to ancient interments. 
This was only a pretext ; the reason was that Boccaccio had been a bitter satirist 
of the Church. 

2 Dante sleeps afar : Dante was buried, not at Florence, his own city, but at 
Ravenna, " by the upbraiding shore " (see also note 4, p. 71 ; and stanza lix). 

3 Scipio: the older Scipio Africanus (237-185 or 183 B.C.), the Roman con- 
queror of Hannibal, was, according to Livy, so disgusted by Rome's ingratitude 
that he retired to the coast of Campania, Italy, and ordered his body to be buried 
there. Another account asserts that he was buried by the Caelian hill in Rome 
(see note 2, p. 88). 

4 Crown : see note 2, p. 67. 



80 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue ? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song, 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
Uptorn, must bear the hyaena bigot's wrong, 
No more amidst the meaner dead find room, 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom ! 

LIX 
And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust ; 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The Caesar's pageant, 1 shorn of Brutus' bust 
Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more : 
Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, 
Fortress of falling empire ! honored sleeps 
The immortal exile; 2 — Arqua, too, her store 
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 
While Florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps. 

LX 
What is her pyramid of precious stones ? 3 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to incrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes 3 ? the momentary dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 

1 Caesar's pageant : a pageant decreed in 22 a.d. by Tiberius Caesar at the 
funeral of Junia, wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus. The busts of her husband 
and of her brother were not allowed to be carried in the procession, since Cassius 
and Brutus had taken part in the assassination of Julius Caesar. " Nevertheless," 
says Tacitus, the Roman historian, " their glory was all the more present in men's 
minds in that their images were withheld from men's eyes." 

2 The immortal exile : Dante (see note 4, p. 71). 

3 Her pyramid of precious stones ; merchant-dukes : several of the Medici 
(see note 2, p. 75), the " merchant-dukes," are buried in the church of San Lorenzo, 
Florence, in magnificent sepulchers. 



CHILDE HAROLD 8l 

Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. 

LXI 

There be more things -to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's * most princely shrine, 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow Sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 
For I have been accustomed to entwine 
My thoughts with Nature, rather, in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my Spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXII 
Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, 2 in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing hies, 
And torrents, swollen to rivers with their gore, 
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er, 

1 Arno's dome of Art :]Byron here refers to the Duomo, or cathedral, of Flor- 
ence, which, crowned with the great Brunelleschi's dome and adorned with sculp- 
ture and stained glass, may indeed be called a " princely shrine of art." The poet, 
however, is using the cathedral but as a symbol of Florence, the most princely of 
the world's shrines of art. 

2 Thrasimene's lake : a lake ten miles long, lying ten miles west of the city 
of Perugia; the correct spelling is Trasimeno (Latin, Trasimenns). On its 
shores, in 217 B.C., Hannibal almost annihilated the army of the Romans. Livy 
states that, in the heat of the conflict, a severe earthquake passed unnoticed ! 
However absurd the legend,' Byron makes fine use of it. "The Carthaginian" is, 
of course, Hannibal, who is now acknowledged to have been a military genius of 
the first order. 



82 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

LXIII 

Like to a forest felled by mountain winds ; 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, 
An earthquake reeled unheededly'away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet ■ — 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet 1 

LXIV 

The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, 
In them suspended, recked not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains — and Man's dread hath no words. 

LXV 

Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 
Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto 1 tells ye where the dead 
Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters red. 

1 Sanguinetto : This word means " bloody rivulet," and is the name of a 
small river flowing into Lake Trasimeno. 



CHILDE HAROLD 83 

LXVI 

But thou, Clitumnus ! x in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes — the purest God of gentle waters ! 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters ! 

LXVII 
And on thy happy shore a Temple still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; 
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. 

LXVIII 
Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 't is his ; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 
With Nature's baptism, — 't is to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 

1 Clitumnus : a river of Umbria, Italy, flowing into the Tinia, celebrated for 
its beauty and sanctity. Cattle who drank of its waters became snowy white ! 



84 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

LXIX 

The roar of waters ! r — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice ; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, 2 curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 

LXX 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
Is an eternal April to the ground, 
Making it all one emerald : — how profound 
The gulf ! and how the giant Element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 

LXXI 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant sea 

1 The roar of waters : the waters of the Cascata del Marmore, or Marble 
Cascade, fifty-three miles northeast of Rome, near the city of Terni. It is 
formed by the Velino River, and falls six hundred and fifty feet. Byron says : 
"I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice, at different periods, — once 
from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower 
view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only ; but in any 
point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and 
torrents of Switzerland put together : the Staubach, Reichenbach, fall of Arpenaz, 
etc., are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot 
speak, not yet having seen it." 

2 Phlegethon : in Greek mythology, a river of fire in the lower world. 



CHILDE HAROLD 85 

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 
With many windings, through the vale : — Look back ! 
Lo ! where it comes like an Eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its track, 
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract, 

LXXII 
Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris 1 sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn : 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

LXXIII 
Once more upon the woody Apennine 2 — 
The infant Alps, which — had I not before 
Gazed on their mightier Parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
The thundering lauwine — might be worshipped more ; 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau 3 rear 
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc 3 both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

1 Iris : not the flower, known as the flcur dc fys, but the rainbow so charac- 
teristic of Alpine torrents and found by Byron at the Marble Cascade also. 

2 The woody Apennine : Byron is proceeding southward, towards Rome, and 
is skirting the eastern edge of the Apennines. 

3 Jungfrau ; Mont Blanc : great peaks of the Alps, in height 13,670 and 15,781 
feet respectively (see pp. 47-51 for Byron's feeling toward the Alps). 



86 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

LXXIV 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains 1 of old name ; 
And on Parnassus 2 seen the eagles fly 
Like spirits of the spot, as 't were for fame, 
For still they soared unutterably high ; 
I 've looked on Ida 2 with a Trojan's eye ; 
Athos 2 — Olympus 2 — yEtna 2 — Atlas 2 — made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity, 
All — save the lone Soracte's 3 height, displayed 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 

LXXV 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, 
And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain 
May he, who will, his recollections rake, 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latin echoes 4 — I abhorred 

1 The Acroceraunian mountains: Acroceraunia (modern Glossa), which in 
Greek means " the thunder-smitten peaks," was in ancient geography a promon- 
tory projecting from Epirus into the Ionian Sea. 

2 Parnassus : a mountain ridge eighty-three miles northwest of Athens, cele- 
brated in Greek mythology as the abode of Apollo, the Muses, and the nymphs ; 
greatest height, 8068 feet. Ida : a mountain range in Asia Minor, near which was 
ancient Troy ; to the Trojans, a sacred mountain; height, 5700 feet. Athos: a 
mountain on the extremity of a peninsula of eastern Greece ; height about 6000 
feet. Olympus : the most celebrated mountain in Greece, regarded as the home 
of the gods; it is in Thessaly, and is almost 10,000 feet in height. ./Etna : 
the great volcano in Sicily, famous in mythology as the abode of the giant 
Enceladus ; height almost 11,000 feet. Atlas : a mountain system in northern 
Africa; its highest summit is 14,600 feet. 

3 Soracte : a low, isolated mountain, twenty-five miles northeast of Rome, 
2260 feet in height, and not a part of the Apennine chain. It has been made 
classic by Horace's references to it. Byron evidently means that the Apennines 
appeal little to him as compared with the giant Alps and the classic associations 
of the other mountains he names ; the Apennines are not so high as the Alps 
nor so celebrated as the classic peaks. The poet makes an exception of Soracte, 
but he need not have done so, since Soracte is not one of the Apennines. 

4 Latin echoes : Byron means the use of quotations from Horace, referring 
to Soracte. Horace (65—8 B.C.), the Roman lyric poet and satirist, uttered a 
pious wish that his works might never be used as schoolbooks ; yet as such 



CHILDE HAROLD 87 

Too much, to conquer for the Poet's sake, 
The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

LXXVI 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned 
My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what then it learned, 
Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought 
By the impatience of my early thought, 
That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health — but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVII 
Then farewell, Horace — whom I hated so, 
Not for thy faults, but mine : it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse ; 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, 
Awakening without wounding the touched heart, 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 

LXXVIII 

Oh, Rome ! x my country ! City of the soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 

they have been used ever since his death. Though in truth one of the most 
charming and graceful of all poets, he is yet to many a student just the bugbear 
he was to Byron, in whose complaints there lies some justice. 

1 Rome : " 1 have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am delighted 
with Rome. As a whole — ancient and modern — it beats Greece, Constanti- 
nople, everything, — at least that I have ever seen. But I can't describe, because 
my first impressions are always strong and confused, and my memory selects and 
reduces them to order, like distance in the landscape, and blends them better^ 
although they may be less distinct. I have been on horseback most of the day, 



88 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Lone Mother of dead empires ! and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. . 

LXXIX 
The Niobe 1 of nations ! there she stands, 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
An empty urn within her withered hands, 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; 
The Scipios' tomb 2 contains no ashes now ; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 

LXXX 
The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride ; 3 

all days since my arrival. I have been to Albano, its lakes, and to the top of the 
Alban Mount, and to Frascati, Aricia, etc. As for the Coliseum, Pantheon, etc., 
etc., they are quite inconceivable, and must be seen." — Byron's Letters, May, 1817. 

1 Niobe : according to the Greek myth, the daughter of Tantalus and wife of 
Amphion. She had seven sons and seven daughters, whom she proclaimed to 
be superior to Apollo and Artemis, children of Leto. For this impiety the gods 
destroyed all her children. Niobe, through her grief, was turned to stone, but 
still wept eternally. Thus she has become the type of " voiceless woe." 

2 The Scipios' tomb : discovered in 1780 within the limits of the modern city 
of Rome. The Scipios formed one of the greatest families of Rome — the one 
above all others who made her mistress of the world. Byron perhaps means 
that Rome not only has no Scipios at the present day, but has lost even the 
very traditions of patriotism. 

3 The Goth ; the Christian, etc. : Rome is the most famous of all cities. 
During its twenty-six hundred years of history it has achieved innumerable 
triumphs and suffered many and various misfortunes. Examples to illustrate 
Byron's lament are scarcely needed ; but it may be remembered that the Goths 
sacked Rome in 410 a.d.; that the "Christians," under the Byzantine general 



CHILDE HAROLD 89 

She saw her glories star by star expire, 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 
Where the car climbed the capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 
And say, " here was, or is," where all is doubly night ? 

LXXXI 

The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The Ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, 
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry " Eureka ! it is clear " — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII 

Alas ! the lofty city ! and, alas, 

The trebly hundred triumphs ! * and the day 

When Brutus 2 made the dagger's edge surpass 

The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 

Alas, for Tully's 2 voice, and Virgil's 2 lay, 

And Livy's 2 pictured page ! — but these shall be 

Belisarius, took the city in 536 a.d. ; that it was sacked by the Constable de 
Bourbon in 1527 ; that the destructive floods of the Tiber had, up to 1870, num- 
bered one hundred and thirty-two ; and that the city was almost destroyed by 
fire under Nero, and has since suffered many serious conflagrations. Many 
other catastrophes might be added to this list. But since Byron wrote these 
stanzas Rome, as the head of united Italy, has grown to be a great modern capital. 

1 The trebly hundred triumphs : Rome, from Romulus to Titus, celebrated 
three hundred and twenty "triumphs," — magnificent processions and religious 
ceremonies in honor of a victorious military leader. A " triumph " was the highest 
honor attainable by a Roman general. 

2 Brutus ; Tully; Virgil; Livy : Brutus (85-42 B.C.), the most prominent 
among the assassins of Caesar, is regarded by Byron as an exalted patriot. 



90 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free ! 

LXXXIII 

Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel, 
Triumphant Sylla ! x Thou, who didst subdue 
Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown 
Annihilated senates ; — Roman, too, 
With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown — 

LXXXIV 

The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine, 
By aught than Romans, Rome should thus be laid ? — 
She who was named Eternal, and arrayed 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veiled 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed, 
Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was Almighty hailed ! 

Tully : see note i, p. 74. Virgil (70-19 B.C.) was the Roman poet, author of the 
sEncid and of other works. Livy (59 B.c-17 a.d.) was the most picturesque of 
Roman historians. Byron here names the three writers who, above all others, 
celebrate in their works the majesty and power of Rome. 

1 Sylla: Lucius Cornelius Sulla (or Sylla) (138-78 B.C.), Roman general 
and dictator. Stanza lxxxiii refers to the following events in his life : in 86 B.C., 
during the consulship of his enemies, Marius and Cinna, his party had been over- 
thrown and his regulations repealed ; yet he refused to " vent the wrath of his 
own wrongs " until he conquered Mithridates in 83 B.C., and his " eagles flew o'er 
prostrate Asia." In 81 B.C. he was made dictator, but — strangest of all from such 
a man — in 79 B.C. he resigned his office and retired into private life. 



CHILDE HAROLD 91 

LXXXV 

Sylla was first of victors ; but our own. 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ! — he 
Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne 
Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See 
What crimes it cost to be a moment free, 
And famous through all ages ! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; 
His day of double victory and death r 
Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. 

LXXXV I 
The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all but crowned him, on the selfsame day 
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 
And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway, 
And all we deem delightful, and consume 
Our souls to compass through each arduous way, 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? 
Were they but so in Man's, how different were his doom ! 

LXXXVII 
And thou, dread Statue ! 2 yet existent in 
The austerest form of naked majesty, 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie, 
Folding his robe in dying dignity — 

1 Day of double victory and death : on September 3, 1650, Cromwell gained 
his victory at Dunbar ; on September 3, 165 1, he won his " crowning mercy " of 
Worcester; on September 3, 1658, he died. The "double victory" is, of course, 
Dunbar and Worcester ; the " two realms," England and Scotland. 

2 Dread Statue : this statue of Pompey, now in the Palazza Spada, Rome, 
though probably a portrait of the great rival of Julius Caesar, cannot be positively 
identified with that statue at the base of which "great Caesar fell." See Julitis 
C<zsai' : Act III, sc. ii, 1. 192. 



92 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

An offering to thine altar from the queen 
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! * did he die, 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been 
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? 

LXXXVIII 
And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome, 2 
She-wolf ! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art, 
Thou standest : — Mother of the mighty heart, 
Which the great Founder sucked from thy wild teat, 
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, 
And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? 

LXXXIX 

Thou dost ; — but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron ; and the world hath reared 
Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled 
In imitation of the things they feared, 
And fought and conquered, and the same course steered, 
At apish distance ; but as yet none have, 
Nor could, the same supremacy have neared, 
Save one vain Man, 3 who is not in the grave, 
But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 

1 Nemesis : in classic mythology the goddess who avenged crimes, humbled 
the arrogant, and punished overprosperity. 

2 The thunder-stricken nurse of Rome : legend says that Romulus and 
Remus, the founders of Rome, were nursed by a she-wolf. An ancient bronze 
statue of a wolf suckling two children is preserved in the Palace of the Conserva- 
tors, in Rome. The statue was evidently once struck by lightning. 

3 One vain Man : Napoleon, who at this time was an exile on St. Helena. Be- 
sides these stanzas and others in Childe Harold, Byron wrote four poems on or 
about Napoleon, who made a powerful appeal to the poet's imagination. For 
Napoleon's Farewell see. p. 13 of this volume. 



CHILDE HAROLD 93 

XC 
The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Caesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind 
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 
And an immortal instinct which redeemed 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold — 
Alcides with the distaff * now he seemed 
At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beamed, 

XCI 
And came — and saw — and conquered ! But the man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, 
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van, 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, 
With a deaf heart which never seemed to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity, 
Coquettish in ambition — still he aimed — 
At what ? can he avouch — or answer what he claimed ? 

XCII 
And would be all or nothing — nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him ; few years 
Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate, 
On whom we tread : For this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, 

1 Alcides with the distaff : Alcides is Hercules, who is so called as a descend- 
ant of Alcaeus. In a fit of madness Hercules killed his friend Iphitus, and was 
condemned for this offense to become for three years the slave of Queen Omphale. 
During this servitude his nature seemed changed to effeminacy, — he took his 
mistress's distaff and spun wool with her maidens (see Gayley's Classic Myths, 
p. 239). Thus " Hercules with the distaff" has become a proverbial expression 
for a strong man engaged in some incongruous task. 



94 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

An universal deluge, which appears 
Without an ark 1 for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy rainbow, 1 God ! 

XCIII 
What from this barren being do we reap ? 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 
And all things weighed in Custom's falsest scale ; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 
Lest their own judgments should become too bright, 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. 

XCIV 
And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, 
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free, 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
Within the same arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 

XCV 
I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allowed, 
Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen — 
The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed, 
And the intent of Tyranny avowed, 

1 Ark ; rainbow : this deluge of blood, unlike the deluge of Noah, offers no 
ark of safety ; and a rainbow like Noah's, which marked the end of the flood 
and symbolized God's mercy towards Man, has not yet appeared to foretell the 
end of bloodshed. 



CHILDE HAROLD 95 

The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him * who humbled once the proud, 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne ; 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 

XCVI 
Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, 
And Freedom find no Champion and no Child, 
Such as Columbia 2 saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, 2 armed and undefiled ? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? 

XCVII 
But France 3 got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia 4 been 

1 Of him : of Napoleon ; what Napoleon did on a vast scale and in a lordly 
way other European rulers are attempting in the manner of apes. 

2 Columbia ; Pallas : Columbia is the United States of America; Pallas (Mi- 
nerva) sprang full-armed from the brain of Jupiter. Byron was a great admirer 
of Washington. Cf. the last stanza of his Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte : 

" Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the Great ; 
W r here neither guilty glory glows, 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes — one — the first — the last — the best — 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make men blush there was but one ! " 

3 France : the French Revolution, the result of centuries of oppression by 
the monarchy and aristocracy, went to hideous extremes. Under Napoleon the 
pendulum swung back again — even as far as tyranny. But the final result of the 
Revolution and of Napoleon's dictatorship has not been fatal " to Freedom's 
cause," though, when Byron wrote, it threatened to be. It has all resulted in the 
present French Republic. 

4 Saturnalia : in ancient Rome, the festival of Saturn, celebrated in December 
as a harvest home. It was a period of license, even of orgy, extending through 
all classes of society. 



96 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 
And the base pageant * last upon the scene, 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips Life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his second fall. 

XCVIII 

Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ! 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ; 
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, 
But the sap lasts, and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

XCIX 
There is a stern round tower 2 of other days, 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 
Such as an army's baffled strength delays, 
Standing with half its battlements alone, 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown, 

1 Base pageant : Byron here alludes to three different historical events : 
the Congress of Vienna, September, 1814, held by all the great powers of 
Europe except France, and resulting in the humiliation of that country ; the 
Holy Alliance, September, 1815, which was a league of various European 
sovereigns, who made a treaty embodying a clause that debarred any member of 
the Bonaparte family from ascending any European throne ; the Second Treaty 
of Paris, November, 181 5, between France and the chief powers of Europe, 
which reduced France to her original limits. 

2 A stern round tower : the tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Appian Way, 
Rome, — one of the most striking and interesting of Roman antiquities. During 
the Middle Ages it was used as a fortress. The " fence of stone " refers to the 
basement of concrete on which the tower rests. 



CHILDE HAROLD 97 

The garland of Eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by Time o'erthrown ; — 
What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
What treasure lay so locked, so hid ? — A woman's grave. 

C 
But who was she, the Lady of the Dead, 
Tombed in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 
Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? 
W T hat race of Chiefs and Heroes did she bear ? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 
How lived — how loved — how died she ? Was she not 
So honored — and conspicuously there, 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, 
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

CI 
Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others ? such have been 
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. 
Was she a matron of Cornelia's 1 mien, 
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 
Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war, 
Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections are. 

CII 
Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bowed 
With Woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weighed upon her gentle dust ; a cloud 

1 Cornelia : the mother of the Gracchi (second century b.c.) ; the typical 
Roman matron, celebrated for her accomplishments and virtues. " Egypt's 
graceful queen" is, of course, Cleopatra. 



98 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 
Heaven gives its favorites — early death — yet shed 
A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus 1 of the dead, 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. 

cm 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all, 
Charms — kindred — children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, which might yet recall, 
It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
By Rome — but whither would Conjecture stray ? 
Thus much alone we know — Metella died, 
The wealthiest Roman's wife : Behold his love or pride ! 

CIV 
I know not why — but standing thus by thee 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known, 
Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet, could I seat me by this ivied stone 
Till I had bodied, forth the heated mind, 
Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind ; 

CV 
And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 

1 Hesperus : in classic mythology the evening star. 



CHILDE HAROLD 99 

Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies foundered that was ever dear : 
But could I gather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. 

CVI 
Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry, 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright, 
And sailing pinions. — Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII 
Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped 
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steeped 
In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, 
Deeming it midnight : — Temples — baths — or halls ? 
Pronounce who can : for all that Learning reaped 
From her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount I 1 't is thus the mighty falls. 

1 Imperial Mount : ancient Rome was built on seven hills, the most cele- 
brated of which were the Capitoline and the Palatine. The latter (the " Imperial 
Mount") was the seat of sumptuous private residences, and, later, of the vast 
and splendid palaces of the emperors. It is now one mass of ruins. " Learning," 
since Byron's time, has done much to reveal the " obliterated plan " (stanza cix) 
of the Palatine and to identify its buildings. 



IOO SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CVIII 
There is the moral of all human tales ; 
'T is but the same rehearsal of the past. 
First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails, 
Wealth, Vice, Corruption, — barbarism at last. 
And History, with all her volumes vast, 
Hath but one page, — 't is better written here, 
Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, 
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! draw near, 

CIX 

Admire — exult — despise — laugh — weep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, 
Ages and Realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of Empires pinnacled, 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled ! 
Where are its golden roofs ? 1 where those who dared to build ? 

CX 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 
Thou nameless column 2 with the buried base ! 
What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow ? 
Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 



1 Golden roofs : this may refer either to the " Golden House " of Nero, between 
the Aventine and Palatine hills, the roof of which was covered with gold-plated 
tiles ; to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, which Domitian roofed with 
gold-plated tiles ; or to the original roof of the Pantheon. 

2 Thou nameless column : the column of Phocas, in the Roman Forum. But 
when Byron wrote this it had ceased to be nameless, since an inscription had been 
discovered on its base, stating that it was erected by the Exarch Smaragdus in 
honor of the Emperor Phocas, in 608 a.d. 



CHILDE HAROLD IOI 

Whose arch or pillar 2 meets me in the face, 
Titus or Trajan's ? No — 't is that of Time : 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb 
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, 

CXI 
Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, 
And looking to the stars : they had contained 
A Spirit 2 which with these would find a home, 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned, 
The Roman globe — for, after, none sustained, 
But yielded back his conquests : — he was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained 
With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 

CXII 

Where is the rock of Triumph, 3 the high place 

Where Rome embraced her heroes ? — where the steep 

Tarpeian ? 4 — fittest goal of Treason's race, 

The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 

Cured all ambition ? Did the conquerors heap 

Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, 

1 Arch or pillar : the arch of Titus ; the pillar of Trajan. The column of 
Trajan was originally surmounted by a bronze statue of the emperor holding a 
gilded globe, which was said to contain Trajan's ashes. But the statue of Trajan 
had long since disappeared when, in 1588, it was replaced with one of St. Peter. 
The column is now surmounted by a statue of St. Paul. 

2 A Spirit : that of Trajan (about 57-117 a.d.), one of the greatest of the 
Roman emperors. 

3 Rock of Triumph : the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, on the Capitoline, 
the goal of all triumphal processions. Its exact site has now been established. 

4 The steep Tarpeian : the Tarpeian Rock, from which traitors were hurled 
to death, has not been positively identified, but is now supposed to be a precipi- 
tous cliff at the southwest corner of the Capitoline hill. 



102 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, 1 where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero ! 

CXIII 
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : 
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, 
From the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer failed ; 
But long before had Freedom's face been veiled, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; 
Till every lawless soldier, who assailed, 
Trod on the trembling senate's 2 slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 

CXIV 
Then turn we to her latest tribune's 3 name, 
From her ten thousand tyrants 4 turn to thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 

1 Forum : originally the market place (fontm) of Rome, which in time became 
the center of the city ? s life and, under the Roman Empire, the veritable heart of 
the world. The open square was surrounded by magnificent temples and other 
great public buildings. Here Cicero delivered some of his famous orations, and 
here took place innumerable great events in Roman history. 

2 The trembling senate : the Roman senate which, in the days of the Republic, 
had been the most august legislative body the world ever knew, became under the 
Empire a 'mere slavish tool in the hands, first, of the emperors, and later of the 
soldiery, who raised to the purple any one of their favorites of the moment. 

3 Her latest tribune : Rienzi, the Italian patriot, who was born at Rome about 
1313, and killed at Rome, October, 1354. He led a revolution against the aris- 
tocracy, conquered, and introduced reforms ; but his later arrogant conduct 
alienated the good will even of the common people, and he was finally killed in 
a riot. Though a remarkable man, Rienzi was by no means the ideal patriot pic- 
tured by Byron. He is the hero of Bulwer's novel, Rienzi, the Last of the 
Tribunes. 

4 Ten thousand tyrants : the soldiers of the famous Pretorian Guard, who at 
last dominated Rome, made tools of the emperors and senate, and largely aided 
in bringing about the downfall of the Empire. 



CHILDE HAROLD 103 

Rienzi ! last of Romans ! While the tree 
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf, 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
The forum's Champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Numa 1 thou •?— with reign, alas! too brief. 

CXV 

Egeria ! 2 sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 
The nympholepsy of some fond despair — 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring ; whatsoe'er thy birth, 
Thou wert a beautiful Thought, and softly bodied forth. 

CXVI 

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed Genius of the place, 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep 
Prisoned in marble — bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er ; and, round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep, 



1 Numa : according to legend, the second king of Rome, who lived from 
715 B.C. to 672 B.C. He was wise and just, and instituted the Roman forms 
of worship. 

2 Egeria : in Roman mythology, a nymph who taught Numa the forms of 
worship he was to introduce into Rome. On the Aventine hill are the lovely 
grotto and spring which tradition assigns as the meeting place of Numa 
and Egeria. 



104 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CXVII 

Fantastically tangled ; the green hills 
Are clothed with early blossoms ; through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles ; and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; 
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, 
Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems colored by its skies. 

CXVII I 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ; 
The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy ; and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! 

CXIX 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, 
Blend a celestial with a human heart ; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, 
Share with immortal transports ? could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys, 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? 



CHILDE HAROLD 105 

CXX 

Alas ! our young affections run to waste, 
Or water but the desert ; whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, 
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 
Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poison ; such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 

CXXI 

Oh, Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, — 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart ; 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, 
Even with its own desiring phantasy, 
And to a thought such shape and image given, 
As haunts the unquenched soul — parched — wearied — wrung 
— and riven. 

CXXII 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair ? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreached Paradise of our despair, 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? 



106 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CXXIII 

Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy — but the cure 
Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds — 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, 
Seems ever near the prize — wealthiest when most undone. 

CXXIV 
W 7 e wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst, 
Though to the last, in verge of our decay, 
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. 
Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice — 't is the same, 
Each idle — and all ill — and none the worst — 
For all are meteors with a different name, 
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 

CXXV 

Few — none — find what they love or could have loved, 
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 
Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; 
And Circumstance, that unspiritual god 
And miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, 
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have trod. 



CHILDE HAROLD 107 

CXXVI 

Our life is a false nature — 't is not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin, 
This boundless upas, 1 this all-blasting tree, 
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII 
Yet let us ponder boldly — 't is a base 
Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought — our last and only place 
Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine : 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 
Is chained and tortured — cabined, cribbed, confined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 
The beam pours in — for time and skill will couch the blind. 

CXXVIII 

Arches on arches ! 2 as it were that Rome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, 3 
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine 

1 Upas : a Javanese tree, the gum of which contains a deadly poison. The 
upas was once thought to be fatal to all animal life that approached it, but this 
superstition has been exploded. 

2 Arches on arches : the Coliseum, the mightiest and most interesting of all 
Roman ruins, was begun by the Emperor Vespasian in 72 a.d., as a theater for 
gladiatorial combats and other open-air spectacles. For a description of the 
Coliseum by moonlight see stanza cxliv. 

3 One dome : Byron repeatedly uses the word " dome " to designate a great 
building of any description. 



108 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

As 't were its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which streams here, to illume 
This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 

CXXIX 
Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven, 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 
And shadows forth its glory. There is given 
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power 
And magic in the ruined battlement, 
For which the palace of the present hour 
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx 

Oh, Time ! 1 the beautifier of the dead, 
Adorner of the ruin, 1 comforter 
And only healer when the heart hath bled ; — 
Time ! the corrector where our judgments err, 
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, 
For all beside are sophists — from thy thrift, 
Which never loses though it doth defer — 
Time, the Avenger ! unto thee I lift 
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift : 

CXXXI 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate, 

1 Time ; Adorner of the ruin : at this time the Coliseum was clad in a mul- 
titude of shrubs and wild flowers ; these were afterwards destroyed for fear their 
roots might help to disintegrate the structure. 



CHILDE HAROLD 109 

Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate : — 
If thou hast ever seen me too elate, 
Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? 

CXXXII 

And Thou, who never yet of human wrong 
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! * 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes 2 bade them howl and hiss 
For that unnatural retribution — just, 
Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! 
Dost thou not hear my heart ? — Awake ! thou shalt, and must. 

CXXXIII 
It is not that I may not have incurred 
For my ancestral faults or mine, the wound 
I bleed withal ; 3 and, had it been conferred 
With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound ; 
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground — 

1 Nemesis : see note 1, p. 92. 

2 Orestes : the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. His mother, Clytem- 
nestra, murdered her husband ; Orestes, to avenge his father's death, slew his 
mother. Nemesis called the Furies to punish him for his crime of parricide. 

3 The wound I bleed withal : the eight stanzas from cxxx to cxxxvn are 
purely lyrical and subjective, — the poet's appeal to Time, the Avenger of his 
wrongs. The wound to which he refers must be his unhappy marriage and 
his subsequent social ostracism (see Introduction). Byron had indeed suffered 
in many ways, and is doubtless sincere in these and similar stanzas referring 
to his sufferings ; but it looks to an impartial observer that the poet's gifts 
from Fortune — youth, rank, beauty, wealth, and genius — should have gone 
far to reconcile him to existence. It is to such surprising self-revelations as 



HO SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take 
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found — 
Which if /have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 

CXXXIV 
And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now 
I shrink from what is suffered : let him speak 
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, 
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak ; 
But in this page a record will I seek. 
Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 
Though I be ashes ; a far hour shall wreak 
The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, 
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse ! 

CXXXV 
That curse shall be Forgiveness. 1 — Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven ! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? 
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ? 
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away ? 
And only not to desperation driven, 
Because not altogether of such clay 
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. 

we find in Childe Harold that Matthew Arnold alludes in a famous stanza in his 
Grande Chartreuse : 

" What helps it now, that Byron bore, 
With haughty scorn which mock'd the smart, 
Through Europe to the /Etolian shore 
The pageant of his bleeding heart ? 
That thousands counted every groan, 
And Europe made his woe her own ? " 

1 That curse shall be Forgiveness : cf. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Act I. 
11- 55-73- 



CHILDE HAROLD III 

CXXXVI 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things could do ? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few — 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 
The Janus glance x of whose significant eye, 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. 

CXXXVII 
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : 
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, 
And my flame perish even in conquering pain ; 
But there is that within me which shall tire 
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; 
Something unearthly, which they deem not of, 
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, 
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 

CXXXVIII 
The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread Power ! 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 

1 Janus glance : in Roman mythology Janus was the god of the beginning 
and the end of all undertakings, the protector of doors and gateways, and the 
god of the sun's rising and setting. In this last capacity Janus had two faces, 
one looking to the east, the other to the west. 



112 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That we become a part of what has been, 
And grow unto the spot — all-seeing but unseen. 

CXXXIX 
And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, 
As man was slaughtered by his fellow man. 
And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? 
Both are but theatres — where the chief actors rot. 

CXL 
I see before me the Gladiator * lie : 
He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually low, 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone, 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 

CXLI 



He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away : 
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, 

1 The Gladiator : gladiators were either voluntary or forced. The latter were 
largely recruited from the ranks of barbarian captives, one of whom figures in 
the present stanzas. The scene is suggested by the famous statue once known 
as " The Dying Gladiator," but now called " The Dying Gaul," in the Capitoline 
Museum, Rome. 



CHILDE HAROLD 113 

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay — 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian * mother — he, their sire, 
Butchered to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rushed with his blood — Shall he expire 
And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, 2 and glut your ire ! 

CXLII 
But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam ; 
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, 
And roared or murmured like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise 
Was death or life — the playthings of a crowd — 
My voice sounds much — and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crushed — walls bowed — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. 

CXLIII 

A ruin — yet what ruin ! 3 from its mass 
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, 
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ? 
Alas ! developed, opens the decay, 
When the colossal fabric's form is neared: 
It will not bear the brightness of the day, 
Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. 

1 Dacian : the reference is to a region on the north bank of the Danube, 
which supplied many of the gladiators for the Coliseum. 

2 Goths : the Goths under Alaric sacked Rome in 410 a.d. 

3 A ruin — yet what ruin : during the Middle Ages, and even, strange to say, 
after the Renaissance, the mighty buildings of ancient Rome were plundered for 
stone to build the fortresses, churches, and palaces of the later city. The Coli- 
seum especially suffered. 



114 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CXLIV 
But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; 
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 
The garland forest, which the gray walls wear, 
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head 1 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare — 
Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 
Heroes have trod this spot — 't is on their dust ye tread. 

CXLV 
" While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
" When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
" And when Rome falls — the World." From our own 

land 
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unaltered all — 
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, 
The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will. 

CXLVI 
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and Man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 

1 Laurels on the bald first Caesar's head : according to the Roman historian 
Suetonius, Julius Caesar was peculiarly pleased by a decree of the senate that 
permitted him to wear on all occasions a wreath of laurel. He wore the wreath, 
however, not to gratify his vanity but to conceal his baldness I 



CHILDE HAROLD 



US 



Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon ! 1 — pride of Rome ! 

CXLVII 
Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts ! 
Despoiled yet perfect ! with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts ; 
To Art a model ; and to him who treads 
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 
Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honored forms, 2 whose busts around them close. 

CXLVIII 
There is a dungeon, 3 in whose dim drear light 
What do I gaze on ? Nothing. Look again ! 
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain : 
It is not so — I see them full and plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair, 
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 
The blood is nectar : — but what doth she there, 
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? 



1 Pantheon : " The temple of all the gods," the most perfectly preserved build- 
ing of ancient Rome, was built in 27 B.C. and is now a Christian church. Its ex- 
cellent architecture has served as a model for many great edifices elsewhere. The 
building has no windows, and is lighted solely through an aperture twenty-eight 
feet in diameter in the center of the great dome. 

2 Honored forms : in place of the images of pagan divinities the Pantheon 
now holds the busts of the great men of modem Italy. 

3 A dungeon : a cell under the church of San Niccolo in Carcere ; the reputed 
scene of the highly improbable story of the Roman daughter who kept her im- 
prisoned father alive by feeding him from her own breasts. 



Il6 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CXLIX 
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, 
Where on the heart and from the heart we took 
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look, 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook 
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 
What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not — Cain was Eve's. 

CL 
But here Youth offers to Old Age the food, 
The milk of his own gift : — it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 
Born with her birth. No ; he shall not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher 
Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side 
Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm holds no such tide. 

CLI 
The starry fable x of the milky way 
Has not thy story's purity ; it is 
A constellation of a sweeter ray, 
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss 
Where sparkle distant worlds : — Oh, holiest nurse ! 
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 

1 The starry fable : it was fabled of the Milky Way that when Mercury held 
up the infant Hercules to Juno's breast, the goddess pushed him away, and that 
drops of milk fell into space and became a multitude of tiny stars. 



CHILDE HAROLD 117 

CLII 
Turn to the Mole * which Hadrian reared on high, 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, 
Colossal copyist of deformity, 
Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's 
Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils 
To build for giants, and for his vain earth, 
His shrunken ashes, raise this dome : How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, 
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! 

CLIII 
But lo ! the Dome 2 — the vast and wondrous dome, 
To which Diana's marvel 3 was a cell — 
Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb ! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade ; 

1 The Mole : the gigantic mausoleum built by the emperor Hadrian for the 
reception of his own body. It is a circular tower about 220 feet in diameter, and 
was originally surrounded by columns and statues and surmounted by a cone of 
masonry. During the Middle Ages it was despoiled and changed, was used as 
a fortress by the Pope, and became known as the Castle of San Angelo. The 
mausoleum is " an imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles " only in that it is a royal 
sepulcher of immense size, for its architecture has nothing in common with that 
of the pyramids. 

2 The Dome : the dome of St. Peter's Church in Rome, the most famous as 
well as the largest and most splendid of all churches. Its vast dome, perhaps the 
greatest architectural achievement of the world, was designed by Michelangelo. 
As we read Byron's stanzas we may recall Emerson's beautiful lines on the great 

architect : 

" The hand that rounded Peter's dome 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
Himself from God he could not free ; 
He builded better than he knew ; 
The conscious stone to beauty grew.'' 

3 Diana's marvel : the temple of Diana in Ephesus, one of the " seven won- 
ders " of the ancient world. Byron was mistaken in supposing that he had sur- 
veyed its ruins ; what he really saw was probably the gymnasium. The ruins of 
the temple were not excavated and identified until 1870. 



118 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

I have beheld Sophia's l bright roofs swell 
Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed ; 

CUV 
But thou, of temples old, or altars new, 
Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true ! 
Since Zion's desolation, 2 when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 
Of earthly structures, in his honor piled, 
Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV 
Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; 
And why ? it is not lessened ; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies — nor be blasted by his brow. 

1 Sophia : the mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople, one of the largest and 
most magnificent places of worship in the world. It was built by the emperor 
Justinian in 537 a.d., but has been used as a mosque since the capture of Con- 
stantinople by the Turks in 1453. 

2 Zion's desolation : " Zion " is Jerusalem, in which was Solomon's temple. 
The city was so often besieged, captured, and despoiled, the temple so often 
destroyed and rebuilt, that one is not sure what Byron means by " Zion's deso- 
lation." Perhaps he refers to the first great " desolation " in 586 B.C., when 
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, captured the city, destroyed the original 
temple of Solomon, and absolutely desolated the entire land. But he may have 
in mind the destruction by the Roman emperor Titus in 70 a.d., when the last 
temple, built by Herod, was destroyed, and the ancient city obliterated. 



CHILDE HAROLD 119 

CLVI 

Thou movest — but increasing' with the advance, 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; 
Vastness which grows — but grows to harmonize — 
All musical in its immensities ; 

Rich marbles, richer painting — shrines where flame 
The lamps of gold — and haughty dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds must claim. 

CLVI I 

Thou seest not all ; but piecemeal thou must break, 
To separate contemplation, the great whole ; 
And as the ocean many bays will make 
That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part, 
The Glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLVIII 

Not by its fault — but thine : Our outward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is 
That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this 
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 
Defies at first our Nature's littleness, 
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our Spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 



120 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CLIX 
Then pause, and be enlightened ; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
Of Art and its great Masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan ; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of Man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 

CLX 

Or, turning to the Vatican, 1 go see 
Laocoon's l torture dignifying pain — 
A father's love and mortal's agony 
With an immortal's patience blending : — Vain 
The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain 
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench ; the long envenomed chain 
Rivets the living links, — the enormous asp 
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI 
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 1 
The God of life, and poesy, and light — 
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 

1 The Vatican ; Laocoon ; the Lord of the unerring bow : the Vatican is the 
vast palace of the Pope, at Rome, which contains one of the finest art collections 
in the world. Among its famous statues is the masterpiece known as the " Laoc- 
oon," a Greek work, showing the Trojan priest Laocoon struggling to free him- 
self and his young sons from the toils of the serpent. Another is the statue of 
Apollo, called the " Apollo Belvedere," which the poet refers to as " the Lord of 
the unerring bow," showing the " God of poesy and light " just after he has 
discharged his arrow at the serpent Python. 



CHILDE HAROLD 121 

The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an Immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might 
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

CLXII 
But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Longed for a deathless lover from above, 
And maddened in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever blessed 
The mind with in its most unearthly mood, 
When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood, 
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god ! 

CLXIII 
And if it be Prometheus x stole from Heaven 
The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought ; 
And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust — nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 't was wrought. 

CLXIV 
But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, 2 
The being who upheld it through the past ? 

1 Prometheus : see p. 34. 

2 The Pilgrim of my song : the four cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are 
supposed to be the record of the travels or pilgrimage of a young Englishman 
of noble birth whom the poet calls " Childe Harold." The name " Harold " was 



122 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 
He is no more — these breathings are his last •, 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, 
And he himself as nothing : — if he was 
Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed 
With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — 
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, 

CLXV 
Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit in its mortal shroud, 
And spreads the dim and universal pall 
Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the cloud 
Between us sinks and all which ever glowed, 
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allowed 
To hover on the verge of darkness — rays 
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 

CLXVI 
And send us prying into the abyss, 1 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less than this 
Its wretched essence ; and to dream of fame, 
And wipe the dust from off the idle name 
We never more shall hear, — but never more. 



chosen at random. " Childe " is the old English word for the young scion of a 
noble house, and was used in order to give to the poem a flavor of antiquity 
(cf. the old ballad Childe Waters and Browning's Childe Roland). The "Pil- 
grim" played but a small part even in the two first cantos of the poem, is 
barely mentioned in the third canto, and is forgotten entirely in the fourth. He 
was indeed never other than Byron himself ; and now at last the thin disguise — 
a mere literary artifice — is formally thrown aside. 

1 The abyss : of " Destruction," or oblivion (see last line of stanza clxiv and 
first line of stanza clxvi). 



CHILDE HAROLD 123 

Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : 
It is enough in sooth that once we bore 
These fardels of the heart * — the heart whose sweat was gore. 

CLXVII 
Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 2 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound, 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound ; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground ; 
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the Chief 
Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned, 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. 

CLXVIII 
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? 
Fond Hope of many nations, art thou dead ? 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, 
Death hushed that pang for ever : with thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 
Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy. 

CLXIX 
Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! 

1 Fardels of the heart: evidently a reminiscence of Hamlet, Act III, 
sc. i, 1. 76. 

2 A voice proceeds : the voice of lamentation for the death of Charlotte 
Augusta, only daughter of the prince regent, afterwards George IV of Eng- 
land. She was married in 18 16 to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and died in 
giving birth to her child, November 6, 181 7. She forms the subject of the six 
following stanzas. 



124 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard 
Her many griefs, for One — for she had poured 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. 1 — Thou, too, lonely lord, 2 
And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! 
The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! 

CLXX 
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made ; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes : in the dust 
The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid, 
The love of millions ! How we did intrust 
Futurity to her ! 3 and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed 
Our children should obey her child, and blessed 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed 
Like stars to shepherds' eyes : — 't was but a meteor beamed. 

CLXXI 
Woe unto us, not her ; for she sleeps well : 4 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 
Its knell in princely ears, 'till the o'erstung 
Nations have armed in madness, the strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, — 

1 Iris : the rainbow (iris) of hope. 

2 Lonely lord : Leopold, her husband. 

3 This stanza shows that even in exile Byron preserved his loyalty to Eng- 
land (cf. also stanzas vin-x). 

4 She sleeps well : with the whole of this stanza compare stanza xl of 
Shelley's Adonais. 



CHILDE HAROLD 125 

CLXXII 
These might have been her destiny ; but no — 
Our hearts deny it ; and so young, so fair, 
Good without effort, great without a foe ; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there / 
How many ties did that stern moment tear ! 
From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is linked the electric chain of that despair, 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest 
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. 

CLXXIII 

Lo, Nemi ! * navelled in the woody hills 
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; 
And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect naught can shake, 
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 

CLXXIV 
And near Albano's 2 scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley ; — and afar 
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war, 
"Arms and the Man," 3 whose re-ascending star 

1 Nemi : a lovely lake, seventeen miles southeast of Rome, in the Alban Moun- 
tains. It is the crater of an extinct volcano ; hence its likeness to the " coiled snake." 

2 Albano : a lake near Nemi and similar to it. Byron has now left the city, 
and has returned to the open country. He has climbed to the summit of the 
Alban Mountains, up Monte Albano ("the Alban Mount"), which commands a 
superb view of Rome, the Tiber, the Sabine Mountains, and the ocean. 

3 "Arms and the Man " : the opening words of Virgil's sEneid. The " Man " 
is /Eneas, whose victories on the " Latian (Italian) coast" ultimately led to the 
founding of Rome. 



126 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Rose o'er an empire : — but beneath thy right 
Tully 1 reposed from Rome ; — and where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 
The Sabine farm 2 was tilled, the weary bard's delight. 

CLXXV 

But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 
And he and I must part, — so let it be, — 
His task and mine alike are nearly done ; 
Yet once more let us look upon the Sea ; 
The midland ocean breaks on him and me, 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock 3 unfold 
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled 

CLXXVI 
Upon the blue Symplegades : 4 long years — 
Long, though not very many, since have done 
Their work on both ; some suffering and some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun ; 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run — 
We have had our reward — and it is here : 
That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun, 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 



1 Tully : Cicero had a country place at Tusculum, in the Alban Mountains. 

2 The Sabine farm: though Byron has said "Farewell, Horace" (stanza 
lxxvii), he cannot forbear another allusion. Horace's references to his farm 
in the Sabine hills cause a smile ; he praised the farm, but he lived in the 
city! 

3 Calpe's rock : Gibraltar. 

4 Symplegades : two rocky islets at the entrance of the Bosporus into the 
Black Sea. Byron here alludes to his first voyage, in 1809-1811, which furnished 
the material for the first two cantos of Childe Harold. 



CHILDE HAROLD 127 

CLXXVII 
Oh ! that the desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye Elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted — Can ye not 
Accord me such a Being ? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. 

CLXXVIII 1 
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 

CLXXIX 
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 

1 Stanzas CLXXVIII-CLXXXIV : Byron's love of nature, though ardent and 
sincere, was reserved chiefly for her grander aspects. Both the mountains and 
the sea called to him with irresistible appeal, and both he celebrated in verse that 
fairly rises to the sublimity of his themes. The reader should compare the above 
stanzas with those in Canto III, on Night and Storm in the Alps (see pp. 47-51)' 
These stanzas on the ocean, though hackneyed, can never grow old, such is their 
glorious energy and power. 



128 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

CLXXX 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 

CLXXX I 
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of Lord of thee, and Arbiter of War — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's 1 pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 1 

CLXXXII 
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 

1 Armada ; Trafalgar : two of the most decisive naval events in history. The 
Spanish fleet, known as the "Armada," was met and partly destroyed by the Eng- 
lish in 1588. Terrible storms completed the destruction. The battle of Trafalgar, 
in which the English, under Lord Nelson, won a famous victory over the French 
fleet, under Admiral Villeneuve, was fought in 1805, near the coast of Spain, off 
Cape Trafalgar. 



CHILDE HAROLD 1 29 

Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

CLXXXIII 
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV 
And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 't was a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

CLXXXV 
My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo ; it is fit 



130 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 

CLXXXVI 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell ! 
Ye ! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last — if in your memories dwell 
A thought which once was his — if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell ; x 
Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain, 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain ! 

1 Scallop-shell : in allusion to Childe Harold's pilgrimage to places conse- 
crated by tradition or history ; in the Middle Ages a pilgrim to a holy shrine 
wore a scallop-shell as a badge. 



MAZEPPA 131 

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! 

Sun of the sleepless ! melancholy star ! 

Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, 

That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel, 

How like art thou to joy remember 'd well ! 

So gleams the past, the light of other days, 

Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays ; 

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold, 

Distinct, but distant — clear, but oh, how cold ! 

MAZEPPA 

In Mazeppa, which he wrote at Venice in 18 iS, Byron reverts to 
the meter of his earlier romances and of The Prisoner of Chillon. 
The incident of Mazeppa's ride is historical, though of course trans- 
figured by the poet's imagination. 

The Ukraine (Borderland) was a name formerly applied to a district 
of uncertain boundaries, forming part of the old kingdom of Poland, 
but now belonging entirely to Russia. The inhabitants were Cossacks, 
a mixed race with Polish, Russian, and Tartar blood in their veins. 
Wild and free, they lived in the saddle and were engaged in constant 
warfare. They were organized into a government by the king of 
Poland in the sixteenth century; but, to escape oppression, less than 
a century later they revolted to Russia. 

This brings us down to the time of Mazeppa, a famous " hetman," 
or chief of the Cossacks, who was born somewhere in the Ukraine, 
the exact place of his birth being a matter of dispute, as is the time, 
which is variously stated as 1640 and as 1644. Mazeppa was educated 
as a page at the court of John Casimir, king of Poland. Here 
occurred the romantic incident that Byron has taken as the basis of 
his narrative. Having been detected in an intrigue with a Polish lady 
of high rank, Mazeppa was bound naked to the back of a wild Tartar 
horse, who fled with him into the wilderness — the Ukraine; whether 
to Mazeppa's own home, as some assert, or to the native haunts of the 
horse, as others say, does not greatly affect the romance of the story. 

Mazeppa remained among the Cossacks of the Ukraine, and in 
1687 became their chief. Although subsequently made Prince of the 
Ukraine by Peter the Great, he desired independence of Russia, and 



132 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

so conspired with Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, with whom he 
was defeated at Pultowa. After Pultowa he accompanied Charles to 
Bender, and there died, the same or the following year. 

Mazeppa's story has been a favorite theme for writers. The Russian 
novelist Bulgarin used it in a novel, and the Russian poet Pushkin 
made Mazeppa the hero of his drama, Poltava. But Byron's spirited 
narrative is the most celebrated treatment of the subject. The poet 
doubtless gained his historic facts from the Histoire de Charles XII 
by Voltaire, whose brief and matter-of-fact account is quoted in the 
"Advertisement" prefixed to the original edition of Alazeppa, 1819. 
Even the mere setting of Byron's poem is significant and suggestive : 
after the great defeat the old Hetman, pursued and fleeing, yet bold 
and dauntless as ever, tells to the despairing and wounded king of 
Sweden the wild and romantic story of his youth. The rush of the 
terrible ride through the forests and over the plains, Mazeppa's abso- 
lute helplessness, his hot anger and fruitless scorn, his torture by cold 
and thirst, his peril from the wolves, his passage of the river, form 
the main elements of a story that perhaps only Byron could have told 
with such breathless energy and graphic power. 



y ^T^ WAS after dread Pultowa' s x day, 

JL When fortune left the royal Swede — 
Around a slaughtered army lay, 

No more to combat and to bleed. 
The power and glory of the war, 

Faithless as their vain votaries, men, 
Had passed to the triumphant Czar, 

And Moscow's walls were safe again — 
Until a day more dark and drear 

And a more memorable year, 10 

Should give to slaughter and to shame 
A mightier host and haughtier name ; 
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, 
A shock to one — a thunderbolt to all. 2 

1 Pultowa: a city in southwestern Russia, near which Peter the Great won a 
famous victory over Charles the Twelfth, on July 8, 1709. This battle marked 
the beginning of Charles's downward career and the rise of Russia. 

2 Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow on October 19, 1812. 



MAZEPPA 133 

II 

Such was the hazard of the die ; 

The wounded Charles x was taught to fly 

By day and night through field and flood, 

Stained with his own and subjects' blood ; 

For thousands fell that flight to aid : 

And not a voice was heard to upbraid 20 

Ambition in his humbled hour, 

When Truth had nought to dread from Power. 

His horse was slain, and Gieta 2 gave 

His own — and died the Russians' slave. 

This, too, sinks after many a league 

Of well-sustained but vain fatigue ; 

And in the depth of forests darkling 

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling — 

The beacons of surrounding foes — 
A king must lay his limbs at length. 30 

Are these the laurels and repose 
For which the nations strain their strength? 
They laid him by a savage tree, 
In outworn Nature's agony ; 
His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark ; 
The heavy hour was chill and dark ; 
The fever in his blood forbade 
A transient slumber's fitful aid : 
And thus it was ; but yet through all, 
Kinglike the Monarch bore his fall, 40 

And made, in this extreme of ill, 
His pangs the vassals of his will : 
All silent and subdued were they, 
As once the nations round him lay. 

1 Charles had been wounded in the foot ten days before the battle of Pultowa. 

2 Gieta : a Swedish officer. 



134 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

III 

A band of chiefs ! — alas ! how few, 

Since but the fleeting of a day 
Had thinned it ; but this wreck was true 

And chivalrous : upon the clay 
Each sate him down, all sad and mute, 

Beside his monarch and his steed ; 50 

For danger levels man and brute, 

And all are fellows in their need. 
Among the rest, Mazeppa made 
His pillow in an old oak's shade — 
Himself as rough, and scarce less old, 
The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold ; 
But first, outspent with this long course, 
The Cossack prince rubbed down his horse, 
And made for him a leafy bed, 

And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane, 60 

And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein, 
And joyed to see how well he fed ; 
For until now he had the dread 
His wearied courser might refuse 
To browse beneath the midnight dews : 
But he was hardy as his lord, 
And little cared for bed and board ; 
But spirited and docile too, 
Whate'er was to be done, would do. 
Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 70 

All Tartar-like he carried him ; 
Obeyed his voice, and came to call, 
And knew him in the midst of all : 
Though thousands were around, — and Night, 
Without a star, pursued her flight, — 
That steed from sunset until dawn 
His chief would follow like a fawn. 



MAZEPPA 135 

IV 

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, 

And laid his lance beneath his oak, 

Felt if his arms in order good 80 

The long day's march had well withstood — 

If still the powder filled the pan, 

And flints unloosened kept their lock — 

His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, 

And whether they had chafed his belt ; 

And next the venerable man, 

From out his havresack and can, 

Prepared and spread his slender stock ; 
And to the Monarch and his men 
The whole or portion offered then 90 

With far less of inquietude 
Than courtiers at a banquet would. 
And Charles of this his slender share 
With smiles partook a moment there, 
To force of cheer a greater show, 
And seem above both wounds and woe ; — 
And then he said : "Of all our band, 
Though firm of heart and strong of hand, 
In skirmish, march, or forage, none 
Can less have said or more have done 100 

Than thee, Mazeppa ! On the earth 
So fit a pair had never birth, 
Since Alexander's days till now, 
As thy Bucephalus 1 and thou : 
All Scythia's 2 fame to thine should yield 
For pricking 3 on o'er flood and field." 

1 Bucephalus : a favorite horse of Alexander the Great. 

2 Scythia : an ill-defined region of western Asia and southeastern Europe, 
regarded by the Romans as the home of the best horsemen in the world. 

3 Pricking : spurring. 



136 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Mazeppa answered, " 111 betide 

The school wherein I learned to ride ! " 

Quoth Charles, " Old Hetman, wherefore so, 

Since thou hast learned the art so well? " no 

Mazeppa said, " 'T were long to tell ; 

And we have many a league to go, 

With every now and then a blow, 

And ten to one at least the foe, 

Before our steeds may graze at ease, 

Beyond the swift Borysthenes : l 

And, Sire, your limbs have need of rest, 

And I will be the sentinel 

Of this your troop." — " But I request," 

Said Sweden's monarch, " thou wilt tell 120 

This tale of thine, and I may reap, 

Perchance, from this the boon of sleep ; 

For at this moment from my eyes 

The hope of present slumber flies." 

" Well, Sire, with such a hope, I '11 track 

My seventy years of memory back : 

I think 't was in my twentieth spring, — 

Ay, 'twas, — when Casimir was king — 

John Casimir, 2 — I was his page 

Six summers, in my earlier age : 1 30 

A learned monarch, faith ! was he, 

And most unlike your majesty ; 

He made no wars, and did not gain 

New realms to lose them back again ; 

And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) 

1 Borysthenes : the Dnieper. 

2 John Casimir : king of Poland from 1648 to 1668. He did, in fact, make war, 
but was always rather more of a monk than of a king. After an unsuccessful 
reign he abdicated in 1668 and died in France in 1672. 



MAZEPPA 



137 



He reigned in most unseemly quiet ; 

Not that he had no cares to vex ; 

He loved the muses and the Sex ; 

And sometimes these so froward are, 

They made him wish himself at war; 140 

But soon his wrath being o'er, he took 

Another mistress, or new book : 

And then he gave prodigious fetes — 

All Warsaw gathered round his gates 

To gaze upon his splendid court, 

And dames and chiefs, of princely port. 

He was the Polish Solomon, 

So sung his poets, all but one, 

Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, 

And boasted that he could not natter. 150 

It was a court of jousts and mimes, 

Where every courtier tried at rhymes ; 

Even I for once produced some verses, 

And signed my odes ' Despairing Thyrsis.' 

There was a certain Palatine, 1 

A count of far and high descent, 
Rich as a salt or silver mine ; 2 
And he was proud, ye may divine, 

As if from heaven he had been sent : 
He had such wealth in blood and ore 160 

As few could match beneath the throne ; 
And he would gaze upon his store, 
And o'er his pedigree would pore, 



1 Palatine : a term of varied significance ; but Byron probably means either 
a nobleman of high rank, charged with certain duties at court, or one endowed 
by the sovereign with privileges and judicial prerogatives inferior only to those 
of the king himself. 

2 Rich as a salt mine : a pardonable comparison, when it is remembered that 
the wealth of the region once known as Poland lies largely in its salt mines. 



138 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Until by some confusion led, 

Which almost looked like want of head, 

He thought their merits were his own. 
His wife was not of this opinion ; 

His junior she by thirty years, 
Grew daily tired of his dominion ; 

And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 170 

To virtue a few farewell tears, 
A restless dream or two, some glances 
At Warsaw's youth, some songs, and dances 
Awaited but the usual chances, 
Those happy accidents which render 
The coldest dames so very tender, 
To deck her Count with titles given, 
T is said, as passports into Heaven ; 
But, strange to say, they rarely boast 
Of these, who have deserved them most. 180 



" I was a goodly stripling then ; 

At seventy years I so may say, 
That there were few, or boys, or men, 

Who, in my dawning time of day, 
Of vassal or of 'knight's degree, 
Could vie in vanities with me ; 
For I had strength — youth — gaiety, 
A port, not like to this ye see, 
But smooth, as all is rugged now ; 

For Time, and Care, and War, have ploughed 190 
My very soul from out my brow ; 

And thus I should be disavowed 
By all my kind and kin, could they 
Compare my day and yesterday : 



MAZEPPA 139 

This change was wrought, too, long ere age 

Had ta'en my features for his page : 

With years, ye know, have not declined 

My strength — my courage — or my mind, 

Or at this hour I should not be 

Telling old tales beneath a tree, 200 

With starless skies my canopy. 

But let me on : Theresa's form — 
Methinks it glides before me now, 
Between me and yon chestnut's bough, 

The memory is so quick and warm ; 
And yet I find no words to tell 
The shape of her I loved so well : 
She had the Asiatic eye, 

Such as our Turkish neighbourhood 

Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 210 

Dark as above us is the sky ; 
But through it stole a tender light, 
Like the first moonrise of midnight ; 
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, 
Which seemed to melt to its own beam ; 
All love, half languor, and half fire, 
Like saints that at the stake expire, 
And lift their raptured looks on high, 
As though it were a joy to die. 
A brow like a midsummer lake, 220 

Transparent with the sun therein, 
When waves no murmur dare to make, 

And Heaven beholds her face within. 
A cheek and lip — but why proceed ? 

I loved her then, I love her still ; 
And such as I am, love indeed 

In fierce extremes — in good and ill. 



140 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

But still we love even in our rage, 

And haunted to our very age 

With the vain shadow of the past, — 230 

As is Mazeppa to the last. 

VI 

11 We met — we gazed — I saw, and sighed ; 

She did not speak, and yet replied ; 

There are ten thousand tones and signs 

We hear and see, but none defines — 

Involuntary sparks of thought, 

Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought, 

And form a strange intelligence, 

Alike mysterious and intense, 

Which link the burning chain that binds, 240 

Without their will, young hearts and minds ; 

Conveying, as the electric wire, 

We know not how, the absorbing fire. 

I saw, and sighed — in silence wept, 

And still reluctant distance kept, 

Until I was made known to her, 

And we might then and there confer 

Without suspicion — then, even then, 

I longed, and was resolved to speak ; 
But on my lips they died again, 250 

The accents tremulous and weak, 
Until one hour. — There is a game, 

A frivolous and foolish play, 

Wherewith we while away the day ; 
It is — I have forgot the name — 
And we to this, it seems, were set, 
By some strange chance, which I forget : 
I recked not if I won or lost, 



MAZEPPA HI 

It was enough for me to be 

So near to hear, and oh ! to see 260 

The being whom I loved the most. 
I watched her as a sentinel, 
(May ours this dark night watch as well !) 

Until I saw, and thus it was, 
That she was pensive, nor perceived 
Her occupation, nor was grieved 
Nor glad to lose or gain ; but still 
Played on for hours, as. if her will 
Yet bound her to the place, though not 
That hers might be the winning lot. 270 

Then through my brain the thought did pass, 
Even as a flash of lightning there, 
That there was something in her air 
Which would not doom me to despair ; 
And on the thought my words broke forth, 

All incoherent as they were ; 
Their eloquence was little worth, 
But yet she listened — 'tis enough — 
Who listens once will listen twice ; 
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice — 
And one refusal no rebuff. 

VII 

" I loved, and was beloved again — 

They tell me, Sire, you never knew 

Those gentle frailties ; if 't is true, 
I shorten all my yjy or pain ; 
To you 'twould seem absurd as vain ; 
But all men are not born to reign, 
Or o'er their passions, or as you 
Thus o'er themselves and nations too. 



So 



142 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

I am — or rather was — a Prince, 290 

A chief of thousands, and could lead 

Them on where each would foremost bleed ; 
But could not o'er myself evince 
The like control. — But to resume : 

I loved, and was beloved again ; 
In sooth, it is a happy doom, 

But yet where happiest ends in pain. 
We met in secret, and the hour 
Which led me to that lady's bower 
Was fiery Expectation's dower. 300 

My days and nights were nothing — all 
Except that hour which doth recall, 
In the long lapse from youth to age, 

No other like itself : I 'd give 

The Ukraine back again to live 
It o'er once more, and be a page, 
The happy page, who was the lord 
Of one soft heart, and his own sword, 
And had no other gem nor wealth, 
Save Nature's gift of Youth and Health. 310 

We met in secret — doubly sweet, 
Some say, they find it so to meet ; 
I know not that — I would have given 

My life but to have called her mine 
In the full view of Earth and Heaven ; 

For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth. 

VIII 

" For lovers there are many eyes, 

And such there were on us ; the Devil 

On such occasions should be civil — 320 



MAZEPPA 143 

The Devil ! — I 'm loth to do him wrong, 

It might be some untoward saint, 
Who would not be at rest too long, 

But to his pious bile gave vent — 
But one fair night, some lurking spies 
Surprised and seized us both. 
The Count was something more than wroth — 
I was unarmed ; but if in steel, 
All cap-a-pie from head to heel, 
What 'gainst their numbers could I do? 330 

'T was near his castle, far away 

From city or from succour near, 
And almost on the break of day ; 
I did not think to see another, 

My moments seemed reduced to few ; 
And with one prayer to Mary Mother, 

And, it may be, a saint or two, 
As I resigned me to my fate, 
They led me to the castle gate : 

Theresa's doom I never knew, 340 

Our lot was henceforth separate. 
An angry man, ye may opine, 
Was he, the proud Count Palatine ; 
And he had reason good to be, 

But he was most enraged lest such 

An accident should chance to touch 
Upon his future pedigree ; 
Nor less amazed, that such a blot 
His noble 'scutcheon should have got, 
While he was highest of his line ; 350 

Because unto himself he seemed 

The first of men, nor less he deemed 
In others' eyes, and most in mine. 



144 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

'Sdeath ! with a page — perchance a king 
Had reconciled him to the thing ; 
But with a stripling of a page — 
I felt — but cannot paint his rage. 

IX 

" ' Bring forth the horse ! ' — the horse was brought ! 
In truth, he was a noble steed, 

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 360 

Who looked as though the speed of thought 
Were in his limbs ; but he was wild, 

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, 
With spur and bridle undefiled — 

'T was but a day he had been caught ; 
And snorting, with erected mane, 
And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 
In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led : 

They bound me on, that menial throng, 37° 

Upon his back with many a thong ; 
They loosed him with a sudden lash — 
Away ! — away — and on we dash ! — 
Torrents less rapid and less rash. 



" Away ! — away ! — My breath was gone, 

I saw not where he hurried on : 

'T was scarcely yet the break of day, 

And on he foamed — away ! — away ! 

The last of human sound's which rose, 

As I was darted from my foes, 380 

Was the wild shout of savage laughter, 

Which on the wind came roaring after 



MAZEPPA H5 

A moment from that rabble rout : 
With sudden wrath I wrenched my head, 
And snapped the cord, which to the mane 
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, 
And, writhing half my form about, 
Howled back my curse ; but 'midst the tread, 
The thunder of my courser's speed, 
Perchance they did not hear nor heed : 390 

It vexes me — for I would fain 
Have paid their insult back again. 
I paid it well in after days : 
There is not of that castle gate, 
Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, 
Stone — bar — moat — bridge — or barrier left ; 
Nor of its fields a blade of grass, 
Save what grows on a ridge of wall, 
Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall ; 
And many a time ye there might pass, 400 

Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. 
I saw its turrets in a blaze, 
Their crackling battlements all cleft, 

And the hot lead pour down like rain 
From off the scorched and blackening roof 
Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. 

They little thought that day of pain, 
When launched, as on the lightning's flash, 
They bade me to destruction dash, 

That one day I should come again, 410 

With twice five thousand horse, to thank 

The Count for his uncourteous ride. 
They played me then a bitter prank, 

When, with the wild horse for my guide, 
They bound me to his foaming flank : 



146 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

At length I played them one as frank — 

For Time at last sets all things even — 
And if we do but watch the hour, 
There never yet was human power 

Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 

The patient search and vigil long 

Of him who treasures up a wrong. 

XI 

" Away, away, my steed and I, 
Upon the pinions of the wind. 

All human dwellings left behind, 
We sped like meteors through the sky, 
When with its crackling sound the night 
Is chequered with the Northern light. 
Town — village — none were on our track, 

But a wild plain of far extent, 430 

And bounded by a forest black ; 

And, save the scarce seen battlement 
On distant heights of some stronghold, 
Against the Tartars * built of old, 
No trace of man. The year before, 
A Turkish army had marched o'er ; 
And where the Spahi's 2 hoof hath trod, 
The verdure flies the bloody sod : 
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, 

1 Tartar : the Tartars, or Tatars, were originally the Mongolian tribes of 
eastern Asia. Afterwards the term was used in a vague sense to include the 
various Asiatic tribes and races led into Europe by Genghis Khan about 1225 
a.d. In a more restricted sense, the " Tartars " were certain tribes, largely of 
Turkish race, who lived in Siberia and central and southeastern Russia, and 
made inroads upon the Russians and Poles. Hence the " strongholds " along 
the Polish frontier. Byron may here refer either to the Tartar incursions of 
Genghis Khan or to the predatory inroads of the " Tartar " tribes of southeastern 
Russia. 2 Spahi : a Turkish cavalryman. 



MAZEPPA 147 

And a low breeze crept moaning by — 440 

I could have answered with a sigh — 
But fast we fled — away ! away ! — 
And I could neither sigh nor pray ; 
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain 
Upon the courser's bristling mane ; 
But, snorting still with rage and fear, 
He flew upon his far career : 
At times I almost thought, indeed, 
He must have slackened in his speed ; 
But no — my bound and slender frame 450 

Was nothing to his angry might, 
And merely like a spur became : 
Each motion which I made to free 
My swoln limbs from their agony 

Increased his fury and affright : 
I tried my voice, — 'twas faint and low — 
But yet he swerved as from a blow ; 
And, starting to each accent, sprang 
As from a sudden trumpet's clang : 
Meantime my cords were wet with gore, 460 

Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er ; 
And in my tongue the thirst became 
A something fierier far than flame. 

XII 

" We neared the wild wood — 't was so wide, 

I saw no bounds on either side : 

'Twas studded with old sturdy trees, 

That bent not to the roughest breeze 

Which howls down from Siberia's waste, 

And strips the forest in its haste, — 

But these were few and far between, 470 



148 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Set thick with shrubs more young and green, 
i Luxuriant with their annual leaves, 
Ere strown by those autumnal eves 
That nip the forest's foliage dead, 
Discolored with a lifeless red, 
Which stands thereon like stiffened gore 
Upon the slain when battle 's o'er ; 
And some long winter's night hath shed 
Its frosts o'er every tombless head — 
So cold and stark, the raven's beak 480 

May peck unpierced each frozen cheek : 
'T was a wild waste of underwood, 
And here and there a chestnut stood, 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine ; 

But far apart — and well it were, 
Or else a different lot were mine : 

The boughs gave way, and did not tear 
My limbs ; and I found strength to bear 
My wounds, already scarred with cold ; 
My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 490 

We rustled through the leaves like wind, — 
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind ; 
By night I heard them on the track, 
Their troop came hard upon our back, 
With their long gallop, which can tire 
The hound's deep hate, and hunter's fire : 
Where'er we flew they followed on, 
Nor l^ft us with the morning sun ; 
Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, 
At daybreak winding through the wood, 500 

And through the night had heard their feet 
Their stealing, rustling step repeat. 
Oh ! how I wished for spear or sword, 



MAZEPPA 



149 



At least to die amidst the horde, 

And perish — if it must be so — 

At bay, destroying many a foe ! 

When first my courser's race begun, 

I wished the goal already won ; 

But now I doubted strength and speed : 

Vain doubt ! his swift and savage breed 510 

Had nerved him like the mountain-roe — 

Nor faster falls the blinding snow 

Which whelms the peasant near the door 

Whose threshold he shall cross no more, 

Bewildered with the dazzling blast, 

Than through the forest-paths he passed — 

Untired, untamed, and worse than wild - — 

All furious as a favored child 

Balked of its wish ; or — fiercer still — 

A woman piqued — who has her will ! 520 

XIII 

"The wood was passed ; 'twas more than noon, 

But chill the air, although in June ; 

Or it might be my veins ran cold — 

Prolonged endurance tames the bold ; 

And I was then not what I seem, 

But headlong as a wintry stream, 

And wore my feelings out before 

I well could count their causes o'er : 

And what with fury, fear, and wrath, 

The tortures which beset my path — 530 

Cold — hunger — sorrow — shame — distress — 

Thus bound in Nature's nakedness ; 

Sprung from a race whose rising blood 

When stirred beyond its calmer mood, 



150 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And trodden hard upon, is like 

The rattle-snake's, in act to strike — 

What marvel if this worn-out trunk 

Beneath its woes a moment sunk ? 

The earth gave way, the skies rolled round, 

I seemed to sink upon the ground ; 540 

But erred — for I was fastly bound. 

My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, 

And throbbed awhile, then beat no more : 

The skies spun like a mighty wheel ; 

I saw the trees like drunkards reel, 

And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, 

Which saw no farther. He who dies 

Can die no more than then I died, 

O'ertortured by that ghastly ride. 

I felt the blackness come and go, 550 

And strove to wake ; but could not make 

My senses climb up from below : 

I felt as on a plank at sea, 

When all the waves that dash o'er thee, 

At the same time upheave and whelm, 

And hurl thee towards a desert realm. 

My undulating life was as 

The fancied lights that flitting pass 

Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when 

Fever begins upon the brain ; 560 

But soon it passed, with little pain, 
But a confusion worse than such : 
I own that I should deem it much, 

Dying, to feel the same again ; 

And yet I do suppose we must 

Feel far more e'er we turn to dust ! 

No matter ! I have bared my brow 

Full in Death's face — before — and now. 



MAZEPPA 



XIV 



151 



" My thoughts came back. Where was I? Cold, 
And numb, and giddy : pulse by pulse 570 

Life reassumed its lingering hold, 

And throb by throb, — till grown a pang 
Which for a moment would convulse, 
My blood reflowed, though thick and chill ; 

My ear with uncouth noises rang, 
My heart began once more to thrill ; 

My sight returned, though dim ; alas ! 

And thickened, as it were, with glass. 

Methought the dash of waves was nigh ; 

There was a gleam too of the sky, 580 

Studded with stars ; — it is no dream ; 

The wild horse swims the wilder stream ! 

The bright broad river's gushing tide - 

Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, 

And we are half-way, struggling o'er 

To yon unknown and silent shore. 

The waters broke my hollow trance, 

And with a temporary strength 

My stiffened limbs were rebaptized. 

My courser's broad breast proudly braves, 590 

And dashes off the ascending waves, 

And onward we advance ! 

We reach the slippery shore at length, 
A haven I but little prized, 

For all behind was dark and drear, 

And all before was night and fear. 

How many hours of night or day 

In those suspended pangs I lay, 

I could not tell ; I scarcely knew 

If this were human breath I drew. 600 



152 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XV 

"With glossy skin, and dripping mane, 

And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, 
The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain 

Up the repelling bank. 
We gain the top : a boundless plain 
Spreads through the shadow of the night, 

And onward, onward, onward — seems, 

Like precipices in our dreams, 
To stretch beyond the sight ; 
And here and there a speck of white, 610 

Or scattered spot of dusky green, 
In masses broke into the light, 
As rose the moon upon my right : 

But nought distinctly seen 
In the dim waste would indicate 
The omen of a cottage gate ; 
No twinkling taper from afar 
Stood like a hospitable star ; 
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose 
To make him merry with my woes : 620 

That very cheat had cheered me then ! 
Although detected, welcome still, 
Reminding me, through every ill, 

Of the abodes of men. 

XVI 

" Onward we went — but slack and slow ; 

His savage force at length o'erspent, 
The drooping courser, faint and low, 

All feebly foaming went : 
A sickly infant had had power 
To guide him forward in that hour ! 630 



MAZEPPA 153 

But, useless all to me, 
His new-born tameness nought availed — 
My limbs were bound ; my force had failed, 

Perchance, had they been free. 
With feeble effort still I tried 
To rend the bonds so starkly tied, 

But still it was in vain ; 
My limbs were only wrung the more, 
And soon the idle strife gave o'er, 

Which but prolonged their pain. 640 

The dizzy race seemed almost done, 
Although no goal was nearly won : 
Some streaks announced the coming sun — 

How slow, alas ! he came ! 
Methought that mist of dawning gray 
Would never dapple into day ; 
How heavily it rolled away ! 

Before the eastern flame 
Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, 
And called the radiance from their cars, 650 

And filled the earth, from his deep throne, 
With lonely lustre, all his own. 

XVII 

" Uprose the sun ; the mists were curled 

Back from the solitary world 

Which lay around — behind — before. 

What booted it to traverse o'er 

Plain — forest — river ? Man nor brute, 

Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, 

Lay in the wild luxuriant soil — 

No sign of travel, none of toil — 660 

The very air was mute : 



154 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And not an insect's shrill small horn, 

Nor matin bird's new voice was borne 

From herb nor thicket. Many a werst, 1 

Panting as if his heart would burst, 

The weary brute still staggered on ; 

And still we were — or seemed — alone \ 

At length, while reeling on our way, 

Methought I heard a courser neigh 

From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670 

Is it the wind those branches stirs? 

No, no ! from out the forest prance 

A trampling troop ; I see them come ! 
In one vast squadron they advance ! 

I strove to cry — my lips were dumb ! 
The steeds rush on in plunging pride ; 
But where are they the reins to guide? 
A thousand horse, and none to ride ! 
With flowing tail, and flying mane, 
Wide nostrils never stretched by pain, 680 

Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, 
And feet that iron never shod, 
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, 
A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 
Like waves that follow o'er the sea, 

Came thickly thundering on, 
As if our faint approach to meet J 
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, 
A moment staggering, feebly fleet, 
A moment, with a faint low neigh, 690 

He answered, and then fell ! 
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, 

And reeking limbs immoveable, 

1 Werst : a Russian measure equivalent to about three fifths of an English mile. 



MAZEPPA 



155 



His first and last career is done ! 
On came the troop — they saw him stoop, 

They saw me strangely bound along 

His back with many a bloody thong. 
They stop — they start — they snuff the air, 
Gallop a moment here and there, 

Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 700 

Then plunging back with sudden bound, 
Headed by one black mighty steed, 
Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed, 

Without a single speck or hair 
Of white upon his shaggy hide ; 

They snort — they foam — neigh — they swerve aside 
And backward to the forest fly, 
By instinct, from a human eye. 

They left me there to my despair, 
Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710 

Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, 
Relieved from that unwonted weight, 
From whence I could not extricate 
Nor him nor me — and there we lay, 

The dying on the dead ! 
I little deemed another day 

Would see my houseless, helpless head. 

" And there from morn till twilight bound, 

I felt the heavy hours toil round, 

With just enough of life to see 720 

My last of suns go down on me, 

In hopeless certainty of mind, 

That makes us feel at length resigned 

To that which our foreboding years 

Presents the worst and last of fears : 



156 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Inevitable — even a boon, 

Nor more unkind for coming soon, 

Yet shunned and dreaded with such care, 

As if it only were a snare 

That Prudence might escape : 730 

At times both wished for and implored, 
At times sought with self- pointed sword, 
Yet still a dark and hideous close 
To even intolerable woes, 

And welcome in no shape. 
And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, 
They who have revelled beyond measure 
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, 
Die calm, or calmer, oft than he 
Whose heritage was Misery : 740 

For he who hath in turn run through 
All that was beautiful and new, 

Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave ; 
And, save the future (which is viewed 
Not quite as men are base or good, 
But as their nerves may be endued), 

With nought perhaps to grieve : 
The wretch still hopes his woes must end, 
And Death, whom he should deem his friend, 
Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750 

Arrived to rob him of his prize, 
The tree of his new Paradise. 
To-morrow would have given him all, 
Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall ; 
To-morrow would have been the first 
Of days no more deplored or curst, 
But bright, and long, and beckoning years, 
Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, 



MAZEPPA 



157 



Guerdon of many a painful hour ; 

To-morrow would have given him power 760 

To rule — to shine — to smite — to save — 

And must it dawn upon his grave? 

XVIII 

" The sun was sinking — still I lay 

Chained to the chill and stiffening steed ! 
I thought to mingle there our clay ; 

And my dim eyes of death had need, 

No hope arose of being freed. 
I cast my last looks up the sky, 

And there between me and the sun 
I saw the expecting raven fly, 770 

Who scarce would wait till both should die, 

Ere his repast begun ; 
He flew, and perched, then flew once more, 
And each time nearer than before ; 
I saw his wing through twilight flit, 
And once so near me he alit 

I could have smote, but lacked the strength ; 
But the slight motion of my hand, 
And feeble scratching of the sand, 
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 780 

Which scarcely could be called a voice, 

Together scared him off at length. 
I know no more — my latest dream 

Is something of a lovely star 

Which fixed my dull eyes from afar, 
And went and came with wandering beam, 
And of the cold — dull — swimming — dense 
Sensation of recurring sense, 
And then subsiding back to death, 



158 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

And then again a little breath, 790 

A little thrill — a short suspense, 

An icy sickness curdling o'er 
My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain — 
A gasp — a throb — a start of pain, 

A sigh — and nothing more. 

XIX 

" I woke — where was I ? — Do I see 

A human face look down on me ? 

And doth a roof above me close? 

Do these limbs on a couch repose? 

Is this a chamber where I lie? 800 

And is it mortal yon bright eye, 

That watches me with gentle glance ? 

I closed my own again once more, 
As doubtful that my former trance 

Could not as yet be o'er. 
A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, 
Sate watching by the cottage wall : 
The sparkle of her eye I caught, 
Even with my first return of thought ; 
For ever and anon she threw 810 

A prying, pitying glance on me 

With her black eyes so wild and free : 
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew 

No vision it could be, — 
But that I lived, and was released 
From adding to the vulture's feast : 
And when the Cossack maid beheld 
My heavy eyes at length unsealed, 
She smiled — and I essayed to speak, 

But failed — and she approached, and made 



MAZEPPA 159 

With lip and finger signs that said, 821 

I must not strive as yet to break 
The silence, till my strength should be 
Enough to leave my accents free ; 
And then her hand on mine she laid, 
And smoothed the pillow for my head, 
And stole along on tiptoe tread, 

And gently oped the door, and spake 
In whispers — ne'er was voice so sweet ! 
Even music followed her light feet ; — 830 

But those she called were not awake, 
And she went forth ; but, ere she passed, 
Another look on me she cast, 

Another sign she made, to say, 
That I had nought to fear, that all 
Were near, at my command or call, 

And she would not delay 
Her due return : — while she was gone, 
Methought I felt too much alone. 

XX 

" She came with mother and with sire — 840 

What need of more? — I will not tire 

With long recital of the rest, 

Since I became the Cossack's guest. 

They found me senseless on the plain, 

They bore me to the nearest hut, 
They brought me into life again, — 
Me — one day o'er their realm to reign ] 

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut 
His rage, refining on my pain, 

Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 

Bound — naked — bleeding — and alone, 



l60 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

To pass the desert to a throne, — 

What mortal his own doom may guess? 

Let none despond, let none despair ! 
To-morrow the Borysthenes 
May see our coursers graze at ease 
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never 
Had I such welcome for a river 

As I shall yield when safely there. 
Comrades, good night ! " — The Hetman threw 860 

His length beneath the oak-tree shade, 

With leafy couch already made — 
A bed nor comfortless nor new 
To him, who took his rest whene'er 
The hour arrived, no matter where : 

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. — 
And if ye marvel Charles forgot 
To thank his tale, he wondered not, — 

The king had been an hour asleep ! 



STANZAS FROM THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 

George III of England died in January, 1820. In April, 1821, Robert 
Southey, poet laureate, published a poem describing the king's recep- 
tion into heaven, called The Vision of Judgment. The poem is written 
in lame hexameters, and is altogether an absurd performance. In his 
preface Southey bitterly attacked what he called " the Satanic school 
of poets," meaning chiefly Byron and Shelley. In this Southey blun- 
dered ; he had provoked the most pitiless and brilliant satirist of the 
age. Byron retorted, in October, 1822, with his Vision of Judgment, 
which is at once a mirthful parody of Southey's poem and a scathing 
satire on the poet himself. Southey had already placed George III in 
heaven, so Byron had to let him stay there. He contents himself with 
telling us how hard it was for the king to get in, and how near he came 
to going the other way. The result is certainly the most brilliant of all 
English satires, — one among the very few, perhaps the only one, in 
which satire becomes truly sublime. The poem consists of one hundred 
and six stanzas of the Don Juan type, and is therefore eight hundred 
and forty-eight lines in length. We can here give only the few stanzas 
which serve as an introduction to the trial scene. 

I 

SAINT PETER sat by the celestial gate : 
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, 
So little trouble had been given of late ; 

Not that the place by any means was full, 
But since the Gallic era " eighty-eight " 1 

The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull, 
And " a pull all together," as they say 
At sea — which drew most souls another way. 

II 
The angels all were singing out of tune, 

And hoarse with having little else to do, 
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, 

Or curb a runaway young star or two, 

1 The Gallic era " eighty-eight " : the era of the French Revolution. 
161 



162 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon 

Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue, 
Splitting some planet with its playful tail, 
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale. 

Ill 

The guardian seraphs had retired on high, 
Finding their charges past all care below ; 

Terrestrial business filled nought in the sky 
Save the Recording Angel's black bureau ; 

Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply 
With such rapidity of vice and woe, 

That he had stripped off both his wings in quills, 

And yet was in arrear of human ills. 

IV 
His business so augmented of late years, 

That he was forced, against his will, no doubt 
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers), 

For some resource to turn himself about, 
And claim the help of his celestial peers, 

To aid him ere he should be quite worn out 
By the increased demand for his remarks : 
Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks. 1 

V 
This was a handsome board — at least for heaven ; 

And yet they had even then enough to do, 
So many conquerors' cars were daily driven, 

So many kingdoms fitted up anew ; 
Each day, too, slew its thousands six or seven, 

Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo, 

1 Clerks : pronounced by the English so as to rhyme with " remarks. 



STANZAS FROM THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 163 

They threw their pens down in divine disgust — 
The page was so besmeared with blood and dust. 

XVI 

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate, 

And nodded o'er his keys ; when, lo ! there came 

A wondrous noise he had not heard of late — 
A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame ; 

In short, a roar of things extremely great, 

Which would have made aught save a Saint exclaim ; 

But he, with first a start and then a wink, 

Said, " There 's another star gone out, I think ! " 

XVII 

But ere he could return to his repose, 

A cherub flapped his right wing o'er his eyes — 

At which Saint Peter yawned, and rubbed his nose : 
" Saint porter," said the angel, " prithee rise ! " 

Waving a goodly wing, which glowed, as glows 
An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes : 

To which the saint replied, " Well, what 's the matter ? 

Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter ? " 

XVIII 

" No," quoth the cherub ; " George the Third is dead." 
"And who is George the Third ? " replied the apostle : 

" What George? what Third 1 " " The king of England," said 
The angel. " Well ! he won't find kings to jostle 

Him on his way ; but does he wear his head ? 
Because the last we saw here had a tussle, 

And ne'er would have got into heaven's good graces, 

Had he not flung his head in all our faces. 



164 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XIX 

" He was, if I remember, king of France ; 1 

That head of his, which could not keep a crown 

On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance 
A claim to those of martyrs — like my own. 

If I had had my sword, as I had once 

When I cut ears off, I had cut him down ; 

But having but my keys, and not my brand, 

I only knock 'd his head from out his hand." 

XXII 
The angel answered, " Peter ! do not pout : 

The king who comes has head and all entire, 
And never knew much what it was about — 

He did as doth the puppet — by its wire, 
And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt : 

My business and your own is not to inquire 
Into such matters, but to mind our cue — 
Which is to act as we are bid to do." 

XXIII 
While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, 

Arriving like a rush of mighty wind, 
Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan 

Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, 
Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them an old man 

With an old soul, and both extremely blind, 
Halted before the gate, and in his shroud 
Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud. 

XXIV 
But bringing up the rear of this bright host 
A Spirit of a different aspect waved 

1 King of France : Louis XVI, beheaded in 1793. 



STANZAS FROM THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 165 

His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast 

Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved ; 

His brow was like the deep when tempest-tossed ; 
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved 

Eternal wrath on his immortal face, 

And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space. 

XXV 
As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate 

Ne'er to be entered more by him or sin, 
With such a glance of supernatural hate, 

As made Saint Peter wish himself within ; 
He pottered with his keys at a great rate, 

And sweated through his apostolic skin : 
Of course his perspiration was but ichor, 
Or some such other spiritual liquor. 

XXVI 
The very cherubs huddled all together, 

Like birds when soars the falcon ; and they felt 
A tingling to the tip of every feather, 

And formed a circle like Orion's belt 
Around their poor old charge ; who scarce knew whither 

His guards had led him, though they gently dealt 
With royal manes * (for by many stories, 
And true, we learn the angels all are Tories). 

XXVII 
As things were in this posture, the gate flew 

Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges 
Flung over space an universal hue 

Of many-colored flame, until its tinges 

1 Manes (pronounced ma'nes) : shades, ghosts. 



166 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

Reached even our speck of earth, and made a new 

Aurora borealis spread its fringes 
O'er the North Pole ; the same seen, when ice-bound, 
By Captain Parry's 1 crew, in Melville's Sound. 

XXVIII 
And from the gate thrown open issued beaming 

A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light, 
Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming 

Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight : 
My poor comparisons must needs be teeming 

With earthly likenesses, for here the night 
Of clay obscures our best conceptions, saving, 

Johanna Southcote, 2 or Bob Southey raving. 

i 

XXIX 
T was the archangel Michael : 3 all men know 

The make of angels and archangels, since 
There 's scarce a scribbler has not one to show, 

From the fiends' leader to the angels' prince. 
There also are some altar-pieces, though 

I really can't say that they much evince 
One's inner notions of immortal spirits ; 
But let the connoisseurs explain their merits. 

XXX 

Michael flew forth in glory and in good ; 

A goodly work of him from whom all glory 
And good arise ; the portal past — he stood ; 

Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary — 

1 Captain Parry : a celebrated arctic explorer, who commanded a polar expe- 
dition in 1819. 

2 Johanna (Joanna) Southcote (Southcott) : an English religious fanatic, 
originally a domestic servant, who dictated her prophecies in rhyme. By coup- 
ling her name with that of the poet laureate, Byron intends the rankest insult. 

3 The archangel Michael : Byron, with his Lucifer and Michael, has not for- 
gotten his Paradise Lost. 



STANZAS FROM THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 167 

(I say you [ ng, begging to be understood 

By looks, not years ; and should be very sorry 
To state, they were not older than Saint Peter, 
But merely that they seemed a little sweeter). 

XXXI 
The cherubs, and the saints bowed down before 

That arch-angelic hierarch, the first 
Of essences angelical, who wore 

The aspect of a god ; but this ne'er nursed 
Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose core 

No thought, save for his Maker's service, durst 
Intrude — however glorified and high, 
He knew him but the viceroy of the sky. 

XXXII 
He and the sombre silent Spirit met — 

They knew each other both for good and ill ; 
Such was their power, that neither could forget 

His former friend and future foe ; but still 
There was a high, immortal, proud regret 

In either's eye, as if 't were less their will 
Than destiny to make the eternal years 
Their date of war, and their " champ clos " the spheres. 

XXXV 
The spirits were in neutral space, before 

The gate of heaven : like eastern thresholds is 
The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er, 

And souls despatch'd to that world or to this ; 
And therefore Michael and the other wore 

A civil aspect ; though they did not kiss, 
Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness 
There pass'd a mutual glance of great politeness. 



STANZAS 

(Written, probably at Venice, in 1819) 

I 

COULD Love for ever 
Run like a river, 
And Time's endeavour 

Be tried in vain — 
No other pleasure 
With this could measure ; 
And like a treasure 

We 'd hug the chain. 
But since our sighing 
Ends not in dying, 
And, formed for flying, 

Love plumes his wing ; 
Then for this reason 
Let 's love a season ; 
But let that season be only Spring. 

II 

When lovers parted 
Feel broken-hearted, 
And, all hopes thwarted, 

Expect to die ; 
A few years older, 
Ah ! how much colder 
They might behold her 

For whom they sigh ! 
168 



STANZAS 169 

When linked together, 

In every weather, 

They pluck Love's feather 

From out his wing — 
He '11 stay for ever, 
But sadly shiver 
Without his plumage, when past the Spring. 



STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN 
FLORENCE AND PISA 

(Written in 1821) 



OH, talk not to me of a name great in story — 
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory ; 
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty 
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. 

II 

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled ? 
'T is but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled : 
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary ! 
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory ? 

Ill 

Oh Fame ! — if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 
'T was less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, 
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover, 
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. 



I/O SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

IV 

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee ; 
Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee ; 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, 
I knew it was Love, and I felt it was Glory. 



SELECTIONS FROM DON JUAN 



Don Juan is undoubtedly Byron's masterpiece, on which his claim 
to immortality must largely rest. It was the last and by far the most 
elaborate of his productions, and had attained a length of over fif- 
teen thousand lines when the poet's departure for Greece left it 
forever unfinished. Don Juan is in many ways a marvelous poem, 
but especially so in its perfectly sustained art; while its remarkable 
mingling of satire and sentiment, cynicism and pathos, sublimity and 
absurdity, shows forth Byron himself, with all his complexities and 
contradictions of character. With the possible exception of Butler's 
Hudibras, it is the wittiest of English poems, and as a complete 
picture of its age it is certainly unique. Its verse form, the Italian 
otiiva rima, or eight-line stanza, is handled with an ease and a 
variety of effect unsurpassed in literature. Whatever the subject- 
matter, the style of Don Juan never falls below a high level of excel- 
lence, although the poet's moods change with startling rapidity from 
grave to gay, often leaving the reader in doubt as to what effect was 
intended. But such anticlimaxes form an essential part of the poem. 
Through the perfection of its art, its scathing satire, true pathos, 
and brilliant wit, Don Juan must forever take its place among the 
great sustained poems of the world. 

"'TIS SWEET TO HEAR . . ." 

(From Canto I) 
CXXII 
Tis sweet to hear 
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep 
The song and oar of Adria's * gondolier, 

By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep ; 
'T is sweet to see the evening star appear ; 

'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep 
From leaf to leaf ; 't is sweet to view on high 
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. 

1 Adria : the Adriatic Sea. In this instance Byron perhaps refers to Venice, 
the " bride of the Adriatic." 

171 



1/2 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

CXXIII 
'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home ; 
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark , 

Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; 
T is sweet to be awakened by the lark, 

Or lulled by falling waters ; sweet the hum 
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, 
The lisp of children, and their earliest words. 

CXXIV 

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes 

In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, 
Purple and gushing : sweet are our escapes 

From civic revelry to rural mirth ; 
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps ; 

Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth ; 
Sweet is revenge — especially to women — 
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. 

THE SHIPWRECK 

(From Canto II) 

This marvelous piece of description, probably the most famous 
of its kind, is a mosaic from various sources, one of which is the 
account, given by the poet's grandfather, John Byron, of the loss of 
"The Wager," in 1741, in the Straits of Magellan. No mere selec- 
tion can do justice to Byron's descriptive and comic art. The story 
of Juan's shipwreck, followed by famine, despair, the death of his 
companions, and his own final rescue, should be read as a whole. 

XXIV 

THE ship, called the most holy " Trinidada," 
Was steering duly for the port Leghorn ; 
For there the Spanish family Moncada 

Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born : 



THE SHIPWRECK 173 

They were relations, and for them he had a 

Letter of introduction, which the morn 
Of his departure had been sent him by 
His Spanish friends for those in Italy. 

XXV 

His suite consisted of three servants and 

A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, 
Who several languages did understand, 

But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow, 
And, rocking in his hammock, longed for land, 

His headache being increased by every billow ; 
And the waves oozing through the porthole made 
His berth a little damp, and him afraid. 

XXVI 
'T was not without some reason, for the wind 

Increased at night, until it blew a gale ; 
And though 'twas not much to a naval mind, 

Some landsmen would have looked a little pale, 
For sailors are, in fact, a different kind ; 

At sunset they began to take in sail, 
For the sky showed it would come on to blow, 
And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so. 

XXVII 

At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift 

Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea, 

Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift, 
Started the stern-post, also shattered the 

Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could lift 
Herself from out her present jeopardy, 

The rudder tore away : 't was time to sound 

The pumps, and there were four feet water found. 



174 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XXX 

As day advanced the weather seemed to abate, 
And then the leak they reckoned to reduce, 

And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet 
Kept two hand and one chain-pump still in use. 

The wind blew fresh again ; as it grew late 

A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose, 

A gust — which all descriptive power transcends — 

Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends. 

XXXIII 

It may be easily supposed, while this 

Was going on, some people were unquiet, 
That passengers would find it much amiss 

To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet ; 
That even the able seaman, deeming his 

Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot, 
As upon such occasions tars will ask 
For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask. 

XXXIV 

There 's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms 

As rum and true religion : thus it was, 
Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms, 

The high wind made the treble, and as bass 
The hoarse, harsh waves kept time ; fright cured the qualms 

Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws : 
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion, 
Clamored in chorus to the roaring ocean. 

XXXVIII 
But now there came a flash of hope once more ; 

Day broke, and the wind lulled : the masts were gone, 
The leak increased ; shoals round her, but no shore, 



THE SHIPWRECK 175 

The vessel swam, yet still she held her own. 
They tried the pumps again, and though, before 

Their desperate efforts seemed all useless grown, 
A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale — 
The stronger pumped, the weaker thrummed a sail. 

XXXIX 

Under the vessel's keel the sail was past, 

And for the moment it had some effect ; 
But with a leak, and not a stick of mast, 

Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect? 
But still 't is best to struggle to the last, 

'T is never too late to be wholly wrecked : 
And though 't is true that man can only die once, 
'T is not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons. 

XL 

There winds and waves had hurled them, and from thence, 
Without their will, they carried them away ; 

For they were forced with steering to dispense, 
And never had as yet a quiet day 

On which they might repose, or even commence 
A jury mast or rudder, or could say 

The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck, 

Still swam — though not exactly like a duck. 

XLI 

The wind, in fact, perhaps, was rather less, 

But the ship laboured so, they scarce could hope 

To weather out much longer ; the distress 
Was also great with which they had to cope 

For want of water, and their solid mess 
Was scant enough : in vain the telescope 

Was used — nor sail nor shore appeared in sight, 

Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night. 



176 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

XLIII 
Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears 

In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he 
Could do no more : he was a man in years, 

And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea, 
And if he wept at length they were not fears 

That made his eyelids as a woman's be, 
But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children, — 
Two things for dying people quite bewildering. 

XLIV 
The ship was evidently settling now 

Fast by the head ; and, all distinction gone, 
Some went to prayers again, and made a vow 

Of candles to their saints — but there were none 
To pay them with ; and some looked o'er the bow ; 

Some hoisted out the boats ; and there was one 
That begged Pedrillo for an absolution, 
Who told him to be damned — in his confusion. 

XLV 
Some lashed them in their hammocks ; some put on 

Their best clothes, as if going to a fair ; 
Some cursed the day on which they saw the Sun, 

And gnashed their teeth, and, howling, tore their hair 
And others went on as they had begun, 

Getting the boats out, being well aware 
That a tight boat will live in a rough sea, 
Unless with breakers close beneath her lee. 

XLVIII 
The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had 

Been stove in the beginning of the gale ; 
And the long-boat's condition was but bad, 

As there were but two blankets for a sail, 



THE SHIPWRECK 177 

And one oar for a mast, which a young lad 

Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail ; 
And two boats could not hold, far less be stored, 
To save one half the people then on board. 

XLIX 

'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down 

Over the waste of waters ; like a veil, 
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown 

Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. 
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, 

And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, 
And the dim desolate deep : twelve days had Fear 
Been their familiar, and now Death was here. 

LI 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, 
And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose, 

That still could keep afloat the struggling tars, 
For yet they strove, although of no great use : 

There was no light in heaven but a few stars, 

The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews ; 

She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, 

And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short. 

LII 
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell — 

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave, — 
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell, 

As eager to anticipate their grave ; 
And the sea yawned around her like a hell, 

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, 
Like one who grapples with his enemy, 
And strives to strangle him before he die. 



178 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

LIII 

And first one universal shriek there rushed, 
Louder than the loud Ocean, like a crash 

Of echoing thunder ; and then all was hushed, 
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 

Of billows ; but at intervals there gushed, 
Accompanied by a convulsive splash, 

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 

Of some strong swimmer in his agony. 



THE ISLES OF GREECE 

(From Canto III) 

This famous lyric, an interlude in the narrative, is supposed to be 
sung Ly a wandering poet or minstrel. Its invocation to Greece as 
she was before the Revolution of 182 1 connects itself with the spirited 
stanzas in Childe Harold, Canto II. Such poems rendered the name 
of Byron familiar and dear to the Greeks, long before the poet iden- 
tified himself with the struggle for independence. In English poetry, 
at least, the dead glories of Greece have never found a nobler eulogist 
than Byron. 

1 

THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece ! 
Where burning Sappho l loved and sung, 
Where grew the arts of War and Peace, 

Where Delos 2 rose, and Phcebus sprung ! 
Eternal summer gilds them yet, 
But all, except their Sun, is set. 

1 Sappho : generally considered the world's greatest poetess. She flourished 
toward the close of the seventh century b.c. The scanty remains of her poetry 
that we possess are distinguished by their lyric intensity and power. 

2 Delos : an island in the ^Egean Sea, that rose from the waves at the com- 
mand of Poseidon, to be the birthplace of Artemis and of her brother Apollo, 
god of poetry and music (see Gayley's Classic Myths, 1903, p. 63). 



THE ISLES OF GREECE 179 



The Scian 1 and the Teian muse, 2 
The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute, 

Have found the fame your shores refuse : 
Their place of birth alone is mute 

To sounds which echo further west 

Than your Sires' " Islands of the Blest." 3 

3 
The mountains look on Marathon 4 — 

And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
And musing there an hour alone, 

I dreamed that Greece might still be free ; 
For, standing on the Persians' grave, 
I could not deem myself a slave. 



A King sate on the rocky brow 

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 5 

And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
And men in nations ; — all were his ! 

He counted them at break of day — 

And, when the Sun set, where were they? 



1 The Scian muse : Homer. Scio, anciently known as Chios, an island in the 
yEgean Sea, was considered by the ancients as the most probable birthplace of 
Homer, the greatest of epic poets, who played " the hero's harp." 

2 The Teian muse : Anacreon, the Greek lyric poet, who excelled in love songs 
("the lover's lute"), was born about 550 B.C. at Teos, an Ionian Greek town 
in Asia. 

3 « « Islands of the Blest " : in Greek mythology, the happy abodes far in the 
west to which those favored by the gods passed without dying. At first purely 
imaginary, these blessed isles were later identified with the Canaries. 

4 Marathon : see note 2, p. 44. 

5 Salamis : one of the most famous naval battles of history, in which the 
Greek fleet under Eurybiades utterly defeated the Persian fleet of Xerxes, the 
" King." It was fought 480 B.C. off the island of Salamis, near Athens. 



180 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

5 
And where are they? and where art thou, 
My country? On thy voiceless shore 
The heroic lay is tuneless now — 

The heroic bosom beats no more ! 
And must thy Lyre, so long divine, 
Degenerate into hands like mine? 

6 
'T is something, in the dearth of Fame, 

Though linked among a fettered race, 
To feel at least a patriot's shame, 

Even as I sing, suffuse my face ; 
For what is left the poet here? 
For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. 

15 
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
I see their glorious black eyes shine ; 

But gazing on each glowing maid, 
My own the burning tear-drop laves, 
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 

16 
Place me on Sunium's x marbled steep, 

Where nothing, save the waves and I, 
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep ; 

There, swan-like, let me sing and die : 
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine ! 

1 Sunium : a promontory forming the southern extremity of Attica, now known 
as Cape Colonna. It was once crowned, at a height of three hundred feet above 
the sea, by a magnificent temple of Pallas Athena. The marble pillars still 
remain ; hence, " Sunium's marbled steep." 



SWEET HOUR OF TWILIGHT 181 

SWEET HOUR OF TWILIGHT 

(From Canto III) 

These tender and exquisite stanzas, in the midst of the cynicism 
and satire of Don Juan, are but another exhibition of Byron's ver- 
satility. 

CII 

AVE MARIA ! blessed be the hour ! 
l\ The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft 
Have felt that moment in its fullest power 

Sink o'er the earth — so beautiful and soft — 
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, 

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, 
And not a breath crept through the rosy air, 
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer. 

CHI 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of prayer ! 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of Love ! 
Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above ! 
Ave Maria ! oh that face so fair ! 

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove — 
What though 't is but a pictured image? — strike — 
That painting is no idol, — 't is too like. 

CV 

Sweet hour of Twilight ! — in the solitude 

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, 

Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er, 



182 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 

To where the last Caesarean fortress * stood, 
Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's lore 
And Dryden's lay 2 made haunted ground to me, 
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee ! 

CVII 

Oh, Hesperus ! 3 thou bringest all good things — 
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, 

To the young bird the parent's brooding wings ; 
The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer; 

Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, 
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, 

Are gathered round us by thy look of rest ; 

Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. 

CVIII 

Soft Hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the heart 
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 

When they from their sweet friends are torn apart ; 
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way 

As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, 
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay ; 

Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? 

Ah ! surely Nothing dies but Something mourns ! 

1 The last Caesarean fortress : the palace of Odoacer, king of Italy, who, in 
493 a.d., was defeated and murdered by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. 

2 Evergreen forest ; Boccaccio's lore ; Dryden's lay : the famous pine forest 
near Ravenna was a favorite haunt of Byron's. Here Boccaccio, the great Italian 
story-teller, laid the scene of his tale of " the spectre huntsman," which was 
versified by Dryden in his Theodore and Honoria. 

3 Hesperus : the evening star. Stanza CVII is in part paraphrased from Sappho. 



ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH 
YEAR 



This, with the exception of a few unimportant stanzas, Byron's 
last poem, was written three months before his death, in the midst of 
confusion and alarms. With its high resolves and its revelation of a 
devoted and heroic spirit, it must forever rank among the most 
powerful and impressive autobiographic poems in literature. It is at 
the same time both a dirge and a paean. 



I 

J r I A IS time this heart should be unmoved, 

JL Since others it hath ceased to move : 
Yet, though I cannot be beloved, 
Still let me love ! 

II 

My days are in the yellow leaf ; 

The flowers and fruits of Love are gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone ! 

Ill 

The fire that on my bosom preys 
Is lone as some Volcanic isle ; 
No torch is kindled at its blaze — 
A funeral pile. 

IV 

The hope, the fear, the zealous care, 

The exalted portion of the pain 
And power of love, I cannot share, 
But wear the chain. 
18; 



184 SELECTIONS FROM BYRON 



But 't is not thus — and 't is not here — 

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, 
Where Glory decks the hero's bier, 
Or binds his brow. 

VI 

The Sword, the Banner, and the Field, 

Glory and Greece, around me see ! 
The Spartan, 1 borne upon his shield, 
Was not more free. 

VII 

Awake ! (not Greece — she is awake !) 

Awake, my spirit ! Think through whom 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, 
And then strike home ! 

VIII 

Tread those reviving passions down, 
Unworthy manhood ! — unto thee 
Indifferent should the smile or frown 
Of Beauty be. 

IX 

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live ? 

The land of honourable death 
Is here : — up to the Field, and give 
Away thy breath ! 

1 The Spartan, etc. : perhaps refers to the famous charge given by the Spar- 
tan mother to her son when he was about to depart for battle : " Return either 
■with your shield or upon it." 



MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 185 

X 

Seek out — less often sought than found — 

A soldier's grave, for thee the best ; 
Then look around, and choose thy ground, 
And take thy Rest. 

Missolonghi, January 22, 1824. 



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Tennyson : The Princess (Cook) 30 

Thackeray: History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (Moore). . .60 
Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First 

Bunker Hill Oration (Gaston) 25 .30 

GINN AND COMPANY Publishers 



ENGLISH POETRY (1170-1892) 

Selected by JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY, Professor and Head of the Depart- 
ment of English in The University of Chicago 

8vo. Cloth, xxviii +580 pages. List price, $1.50 

NO other single volume equal in range and price to Manly's "English 
Poetry" has yet been placed before the teaching public. Professor 
Manly has brought together not merely as many poems as a teacher 
could expect his class to read in a course on English literature, but prac- 
tically all from which any teacher choosing those most in harmony with 
his own taste and best suited to the special needs of his students would 
wish to select. The book includes some fifty thousand lines of poetry, 
ranging in date from the beginning of the Middle-English period to the 
death of Tennyson. Two principles have determined the choice of the 
poems, — their intrinsic worth and beauty, and their special significance 
in the history of English literature. The selections are unencumbered 
by notes, and historical and critical information has largely been omitted. 
Explanatory footnotes make clear the extracts from Middle or Early 
Modern English. 



ENGLISH PROSE (1137-1890) 

By JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY, Professor and Head of the Department of 

English in The University of Chicago 

8vo. Cloth, xix 4- 544 pages. List price, $1.50 • mailing price, $1.70 

'"T^HIS book is a companion volume to Manly's "English Poetry," and, 
*- like it, is intended primarily for use in a general survey of English 
literature. It contains so much material, however, that it will be found 
well adapted also for use in many special courses. The aim in both of 
these books has been to afford the teacher an opportunity to make his 
own selection for class use. Long selections (usually whole pieces) 
showing sustained power and control of organic structure have been 
chosen in preference to short bits of writing, however brilliant. 



GINN AND COMPANY Publishers 



MAR 11 W" 



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